New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday apologized to German Marshall Fund Indo-Pacific Program managing director Bonnie Glaser for featuring her in a picture that was shown while he presented his national defense and foreign policy on Monday.
Glaser posted on X a photograph Hou used in his presentation, in which she appeared happy to meet with him. She then tagged both the KMT and Hou, saying: “Please do not use my photo or my statements in ways that suggest I have endorsed Mayor Hou. I have not.”
“We used pictures of US political experts we met during our trip to the US as background, which led to misunderstandings. I would like to apologize to Glaser, and we will quickly make adjustments,” Hou told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference at his campaign headquarters in New Taipei City yesterday morning.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“We respect Glaser and are glad to have met her during the trip to the US,” he said.
KMT Legislator Lee De-wei (李德維), who is also the deputy secretary-general of the KMT caucus, told reporters that Glaser might be overly concerned about the message that the picture could convey.
“Everyone knows that Glaser leans toward the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and there is no way that she would support Hou,” Lee said.
Photo: screen grab from Bonnie Glaser’s X account
The DPP accused Hou of imitating the party’s national defense and foreign policies, adding that most of what he proposed has already been accomplished by the current government.
In response, Hou accused the DPP of showing neither heart nor strength in foreign policy.
“My national defense policy is to prepare for war, but not to provoke. The DPP claims that it is prepared for war, but it continues to provoke with its agenda of supporting Taiwanese independence... We nominated former deputy minister of national defense Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康) as a legislator-at-large, while Lai nominated Kuma Academy cofounder Puma Shen (沈伯洋). The comparison clearly shows which party pays more attention to national defense issues,” Hou said.
Hou also criticized Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) for saying the classic legalist concepts of “integrity” and “shame” were the result of monarchial thinking when You was asked about a controversy over curriculum guidelines implemented in schools since 2019.
“Loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, trustworthiness, peace, propriety, justice and integrity are virtues that we teach our children. It has nothing to do with a monarchy or feudal system,” he said.
Japan and South Korea are both democratic nations that have incorporated moral education in the school curriculum, Hou said.
“Confucian philosophy does not conflict with democratic ideals, and the DPP should not replace moral education with its political ideologies,” he said.
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