Less than two months before the Nov. 26 local elections, two of the hotly contested Taipei mayoral race’s three main candidates have released policy proposals aimed at wooing the city’s pet owners.
In a speech last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) nodded to the importance of this emergent voter bloc, saying there are more than 218,000 registered pets in Taipei, or nearly one for every four of the city’s 1.04 million registered households.
Chiang’s pitch to this group included a pledge to work with the private sector to launch “standard form contracts” for pet health insurance policies and to create a Taipei City Government team to investigate claims of abuse against animals other than cats and dogs.
Photo: CNA
In terms of accessing public transport, he said he hoped to expand on the city’s pet-friendly bus initiative.
He would launch a trial program offering designated “pet carriages” during off-peak hours on the MRT railway serving metropolitan Taipei.
Chiang, a two-term legislator, also proposed establishing guidelines to guarantee sufficient living space and quality of care at shelters run by the Taipei Animal Protection Office.
Photo: CNA
Taipei should also diversify its options for pet adoption, such as by allowing people to foster animals and encouraging programs for campus, workplace and emotional support dogs, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said that if he is elected, he would implement several pet-related policies, including, most eye-catchingly, opening Taiwan’s first “pet amusement park” by the end of his first term.
On a more modest scale, the former health minister said his administration would improve the quality of the city’s 19 dog parks, ensuring that each has drinking water available to dogs and access to shady spaces for their owners.
Photo: CNA
Other planks of Chen’s platform, which he released on Facebook on Monday, include building a “long-term care system” for older pets and launching courses to educate people on the responsibilities of pet ownership.
Former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), who is running as an independent, has yet to put forward pet-related policy proposals, although she recently hit out at Chen for bringing his Shiba Inu to campaign events.
“Pets are like family. There’s no need to use them as electoral props,” she said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS