Two more Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members have announced bids to be the party’s candidate in November’s Taipei mayoral election, further intensifying an already competitive race.
Former KMT legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) yesterday announced his bid on Facebook, unveiling the theme of his campaign, “Finding ‘P.’”
“In Taipei, you can easily find the ‘P’ sign. It used to mean ‘parking,’ but in 2018 it means something different,” said Sun, a four-term lawmaker who failed to win re-election in 2016.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Sun said the best way to overcome adversity is by attaching new meanings to things, which is why the “P” sign should stand for “purity” this year.
According to the former lawmaker’s vision for the capital, Taipei should be “a city of quality and a brand of love” that shares resources with other parts of Taiwan, unites with other Chinese cities, creates the biggest e-market in Asia, and brings positive energy to the world.
“What kind of mayor do we need in Taipei? A celebrity-like mayor? A mayor with the support of a party? Or a mayor elected without stardom and election resources, a pure mayor?” Sun wrote.
Sun’s remarks were an apparent criticism of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), an independent supported by the Democratic Progressive Party in the 2014 elections whose remarks often make headlines.
Meanwhile, former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minster Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) yesterday also announced his bid, saying his bid would stop an incompetent, chaos-causing mayor from winning a second term.
“The residents of Taipei have tolerated Ko’s deviancy for too long and have paid dearly for this political novice... It is time to say no to Ko and take back their power,” Chang said in a news release.
Chang said his goal was to transform Taipei into a city on a par with any developed city in the world, as well as to use the capital as a new engine to reinitiate cross-strait cooperation and alleviate the current tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
With Sun and Chang, the KMT now has five aspirants for the Taipei mayor, including former legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), former Cabinet spokeswoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平).
The party’s candidate is expected to be decided by an opinion poll next month.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra