BEIJING’s BACKING? While there is no evidence Han Kuo-yu colluded with a Facebook group, he was certainly aware that his support online was somewhat mysterious
Taipei Times
Date: Jun 28, 2019
By: Sherry Hsiao / Staff writer, with CNA
Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) won the mayoral election on Nov. 24 last year with the help
Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, center, listens to Kaohsiung Linyuan District Fishing Association secretary-general Lin Rui-ching, left, at a news conference at Shanwei Harbor in Kaohsiung’s Linyuan District yesterday.
Photo: Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
In the article, titled “Chinese cyber-operatives boosted Taiwan’s insurgent candidate,” Paul Huang (黃翔暐), a Taipei-based freelance journalist and writer and Kaohsiung native, wrote: “Barely six months into office, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu is already eyeing a run for the presidency in 2020 and is seen as the godsend that Beijing has been waiting for: the emergence of a populist, pro-China candidate in Taiwan.”
Despite “strong suspicions of Chinese interference” in the local elections held on Nov. 24 last year and a decline in President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) popularity, “few expected the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] would lose Kaohsiung,” he wrote.
In contrast to the DPP’s Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), “an experienced, if somewhat bland, legislator,” Han was “an outsider to Kaohsiung politics whose pro-China rhetoric seemed out of touch with the city’s fierce pro-independent ethos,” he wrote. [FULL STORY]
