Politics

Hung ‘repulsed’ by suggested name change

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday said she is

Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu is interviewed on UFO Network in Taipei yesterday after announcing her bid for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship. Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times

“repulsed” by the proposal to remove “Chinese” from the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) name, saying it bears historical significance.

“I am not only repulsed by the idea, but also strongly oppose it,” Hung said when asked by radio host Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍) during a morning interview with radio show UFO Breakfast whether she sees a need to change the KMT’s name, given the stigma attached to it in recent years.

Hung said the name has its own historical significance and that the recent string of “de-Sinicization” movements in Taiwan have turned Taiwanese independence from a shunned concept to a “natural component” of younger generations.

“In the minds of today’s young people, China is China and Taiwan is Taiwan and that [China] does not have much to do with them. The older generations still have certain emotional bonds [with China], but such connections are non-existent among the younger generations,” Hung said. [FULL STORY]

Hau declares bid for KMT chairman

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-01-21
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin announced

Hau declares bid for KMT chairman
Agence France-Presse (2016-01-21 19:13:44)

Thursday he was running for chairman of the Kuomintang in the March 26 election.

Hau lost a bid for a legislative seat in Keelung last Saturday and also resigned as one of the KMT’s vice chairpersons to take responsibility for the party’s massive defeat in both the presidential and legislative elections.

The party needed to be brought back to life again, but not completely reconstructed, Hau said, in what sounded like a rejection of comments made Wednesday by Legislative Vice Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu during her announcement of a bid to become party leader.

Hau reportedly acknowledged that he belonged to a different stream of ideas within the KMT, and that the race for the leadership was a competition between different routes for the party’s future. [FULL STORY]

Calls for expulsion over KMT criticism

BY ANY OTHER NAME:KMT members are considering dropping ‘China’ from the Party’s name as they assess how to appeal to younger voters amid internal splinter party conflict

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2016
By: Shih Hsiao-kuang and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

New Party (新黨) member Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) yesterday called for the

Wang Ping-chung, right, who suggested that the New Party changes its name to “Chinese Nationalist Party,” on Wednesday points to a sign with the text “Chinese Nationalist Party.” Photo: Screen grab from Wang Ping-chung’s Facebook page

expulsion of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) from the party over Yang’s recent criticism of the KMT, including a name change.

Wang also criticized a group of younger KMT members who founded the “Grassroots Cooperation Alliance” for speaking out for reforms in the party after the election, but failing to support the party when it needed it most.

Wang said that Yang had also quit his position as spokesperson during the Sunflower movement, but had resumed his position after the situation died down.

“If you keep running away in the face of danger and returning in times of peace, why would the party need you as a ‘spokesperson?’” Wang said.

Wang said Yang’s claims that the KMT needs to change its name from Chinese Nationalist Party to Nationalist Party, to dispose fully of its party assets and become a democratized party was insulting, particularly as Yang had, days before the election, claimed on Facebook that he was a “Taiwanese independence activist” as a response to the Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) incident. [FULL STORY]

Court revokes Tainan council speaker’s election

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-01-21
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Tainan District Court Thursday revoked Tainan City Council Speaker Lee Chuan-chiao’s election to the city council in a case brought by Prosecutors. Yet, the case can still be appealed.

In a separate but related case, Huang Teng-ching, secretary-general of a local farmers’ association, and two other suspects were accused of vote-buying for Lee in the city councilor election in 2014. The Tainan District Court found them guilty and gave them different prison sentences.

Following the conviction of the vote-buying case, the case to charge Lee for vote-buying was stalled and eventually handled as a non-prosecution case by the Tainan Prosecutors Office. However, Taiwan High Prosecutors Office’s Tainan Branch ordered the Tainan Prosecutors Office to continue to investigate the case. District prosecutors subsequently filed a case in December 2014 seeking to have Lee’s election to the city council revoked. [FULL STORY]

Freddy Lim: Meet Taiwan’s new rock’n’roll lawmaker

Ponytail-sporting ‘black metal’ singer defies the odds to win seat in parliament

The Independent
Date: January 20, 2016
By: Adam Sherwin

With his leather trousers, ponytail and facial tattoos, Freddy Lim certainly

Freddy Lim at an election rally in Taipei Getty Images

cuts a dash among Taiwan’s legislators.

The frontman of Asia’s leading “black metal” band has just won a seat in Parliament following an election which swept pro-democracy candidates to power.

Standing for the New Power Party, Mr Lim, the lead singer with Chthonic, defeated Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member of parliament Lin Yu-fang, who had held his seat for two decades.

Mr Lim, who wears facial corpse-paint depicting the “eight generals of hell” in Taoist lore on stage, intends to combine the band’s international festival appearances with his legislative duties.

The election ended seven decades of KMT dominance, handing control to the pro-independence Democratic Progress Party (DPP). Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP’s candidate, will become Taiwan’s first female president, sealing the historic transfer of power, which has raised tensions with China. One of five New Power Party legislators elected to the new parliament, Mr Lim capitalised on his popularity among the nation’s youth by staging a 20,000-capacity concert in Taipei’s landmark Liberty Square on Boxing Day. [FULL STORY]

Move KMT headquarters to Taichung: members plead

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 21, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Some members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have suggested that the party relocate its power center out of the capital, and that to do so, the party should move its headquarters from Taipei to Taichung.

The KMT has to stop seeing the world from Taipei, the KMT’s Taichung City Council caucus said yesterday, while calling for party reforms.

The Republic of China’s oldest political party suffered its biggest defeat since 1949, when it lost the Chinese Civil War and was forced to relocate to Taiwan, in Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections.

Not only did the KMT lose the presidency, but also its long-held legislative majority. [FULL STORY]

TSU sacks entire staff

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-01-20
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taiwan Solidarity Union will sack its entire staff following its defeat in last weekend’s elections, reports said Wednesday.

The small pro-independence party lost all its three seats at the Legislative Yuan since its at-large list of candidates failed to reach the threshold of 5 percent. In addition, it also stayed below the minimum of 3.5 percent to receive government subsidies.

TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia and former lawmaker Cheng Chen-lung held talks Wednesday, reaching the conclusion that for the moment being, all staff members should be laid off, leaving an eventual future chairman the room to start from the bottom up, reports said. [FULL STORY]

Legislative speaker to be neutral: DPP

FREETHINKING SPEAKER:The DPP said the decreased influence of a party over the legislative speaker would serve to guarantee the viability of the political system

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 21, 2016
By: Chen Hui-ping, Aaron Tu and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer

The first Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Central Standing

President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, left, and vice president-elect Chen Chien-jen yesterday talk to the media in Taipei after attending the Democratic Progressive Party’s first Central Standing Committee meeting since Saturday’s elections. Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

Committee meeting chaired by president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday affirmed that the new legislative speaker would remain neutral and not be at the whim of the party.

“The legislative speaker will not attend party events, will not hold positions within the party and will not be present in negotiations between political parties,” DPP spokesperson Juan Chao-hsiung (阮昭雄) told a post-meeting press conference.

Specifically, the person holding the position would not attend party events, the DPP Central Standing Committee meetings, national congress meetings, parades and social activism events otherwise hosted by the party and cannot stump for the party nominees in elections, Juan said.

The individual would not hold any position in the party and would refrain from attending bipartisan negotiations in the legislature, or between the legislature and the Executive Yuan, unless their presence is mandated under the Constitution or is otherwise approved by the president, Juan said. [FULL STORY]

Premier Mao resigns, leaves Ma out in cold

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 20, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

In arguably the most bizarre reaction to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s

Members of the Executive Yuan yesterday attend a pre-Lunar New Year banquet in Taipei from which Premier Mao Chi-kuo, who has tendered his resignation, was conspicuously absent. Photo: CNA

(KMT) electoral defeat on Saturday, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) has resigned in spite of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) objection, and even turned the president away from his residence in the process.

Details began to surface late on Monday after Ma was said to have left a message with Mao’s wife, asking the premier to stay on until Ma can persuade the Democratic Progressive Party to form a new Cabinet after it won both the presidency and control of the Legislative Yuan.

Presidential Office spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) said that Ma went to Mao’s residence, but did not find him there.

Ma then asked the premier’s wife to convey the message, asking Mao to “put the interest of the nation first and to hold his position” until the Cabinet’s resignation is approved, Chen said. [FULL STORY]

Tsai to tour country Jan.21-29

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-01-19
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – President-elect Tsai Ing-wen and her running mate Chen Chien-jen will tour the country from January 21 through 29 to thank voters for their support, the Democratic Progressive Party announced Tuesday.

Tsai won 56 percent in a landslide victory last Saturday, while her party won an unprecedented 68 seats at the 113-member Legislative Yuan. The new president and the vice president will be sworn in on May 20.

In order to thank voters, Tsai and Chen would visit most parts of the country and attend tea parties, beginning with Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Tainan on January 21. The areas are known as DPP strongholds, while Tsai’s parents hailed from Pingtung County.

Northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan County would follow January 22, with the other parts of the country to be visited on January 23, 24, 26, 28 and 29, according to the DPP. [FULL STORY]

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