New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday said he supports maintaining close relations with the US while keeping a peaceful relationship with China, adding that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) foreign policy has cost the country multiple allies and made it unable to join regional economic organizations.
Hou and his running mate, Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), at a news conference in New Taipei City also vowed to impose tougher sanctions on scammers.
Asked on the sidelines to comment on Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) plan to follow Tsai’s foreign policy, Hou said that he opposes China’s “one country, two systems” policy and would defend Taiwan’s freedom, democracy and sovereignty, but would not support independence.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
“My position is that we should maintain close relations with the US while keeping a peaceful relationship with China. We should remain a strong ally to the US, but we also need to communicate and increase mutual understanding with China,” Hou said.
“The balance of cross-strait relations has been disrupted because of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) foreign policy. People now fear an imminent war,” he added, calling Tsai’s foreign policy a “complete failure.”
“In the past seven years, Taiwan has lost multiple allies. There is no communication, no dialogue and no exchanges between Taiwan and China, either,” Hou said.
“Because of the DPP government’s error, we cannot join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This shows that the nation needs an adjustment in the direction of foreign policy, because what Tsai has done clearly did not work,” he said.
Facing the military threat from China, Taiwan must not harbor any impractical thoughts, he said.
“The safety of Taiwan does not depend solely on the promises made by the US. We must have a practical view of our relations with China and democratic allies,” he added.
During the news conference, Hou vowed to launch a massive crackdown on scammers during the first year of his presidency if elected, and to reduce scam cases by half by his third year.
A rise in scams has also contributed to an increase in other organized criminal activity, including drug trafficking, he said.
The DPP government has spent NT$2.7 billion (US$85.6 million) cracking down on scams, but cases continue to rise from about 20,000 last year to 30,000 this year, Hou said.
About 46,000 suspects were arrested last year alone for alleged involvement in scams, he added.
Hou touted his record of reducing violent criminal cases when he headed the National Police Agency, first by extensively investigating vehicle thefts.
Hou attributed the continual rise in scam cases to light sentencing and a lack of coordination among government agencies.
Once convicted, only about 0.5 percent of scammers are sentenced to three years in prison or longer, even if the money involved was in the billions, he said.
“If elected, I propose that individuals or organizations participating in scams will be subject to criminal liability, under which penalties should be raised 50 percent. The same penalty would apply to those who repeatedly let scammers use their bank accounts for money-laundering purposes,” he said.
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