An investigation into allegations of insider trading against Medigen Biotechnology Company executives could prove a sensitive matter for the Tsai administration going forward...
China has again set records with drills directed at Taiwan, carrying out “strike drills” around Taiwan in the past week. This is in response to US president Joe Biden signing the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act into law. Part of the provisions of the law authorized 12 billion USD in loans for Taiwan to purchase arms across six years, between 2023 and 2027, with 2 billion USD per year...
President Tsai Ing-wen today announced the extension of the military draft to one year from the current four months at a press conference that began at 3:30 PM. This took place after a meeting between Tsai, the National Security Council, Vice President William Lai, Premier Su Tseng-chang, Minister of Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng, and members of the DPP legislative caucus earlier this month. The announcement was expected in advance, with details of the plan reported on earlier this afternoon...
FoxConn founder Terry Gou has recently begun publicly criticizing the Central Epidemic Command Center that coordinates Taiwan’s COVID-19 strategy over its apparent failure to purchase BioNTech vaccines. Instead, Taiwan is primarily depending on the next-generation Moderna bivalent vaccines for its next round of vaccinating the population against COVID-19...
Gang-related ties and past criminal charges did not prove to be an obstacle for pan-Blue candidates winning office in the last set of elections. Namely, criminal wrongdoing by pan-Blue politicians–whether that be with regards to corruption or even gang-related murder and assault did not prove an obstacle to such politicians winning office...
Questions have been raised about whether pan-Blue independent Chung Tung-chin, who is the current Miaoli county magistrate-elect, may be removed from office and the results of the election invalidated. Namely, three individuals have been detained by prosecutors in connection with a vote-buying scheme to aid Chung, who won with 42.66% of the vote. Prosecutors are also moving to invalidate the vote. ...
The DPP suffered a loss in the Chiayi mayoral election over the weekend. This adds another defeat to the losses suffered by the DPP in nine-in-one elections...
The results of nine-in-one elections today resulted in the KMT regaining control of traditional territories in Taoyuan, Keelung, and Taipei, while edging out the DPP competition. On the other hand, the DPP held onto its own traditional territories in southern Taiwan in Tainan and Kaohsiung. However, the DPP clearly was unable to gain new ground or to hold onto traditional pan-Blue territory that it had captured in past years...
The 2022 midterm elections have, in some ways, been characterized by the absence of any animating core issue. In past years, the national referendum has allowed for local elections to crystallize around specific issues. For preceding elections, this has ranged from legalizing gay marriage to nuclear energy, opening up Taiwan to pork imports from the US, and the name that Taiwan would compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under. This year, the only issue being voted on is that of lowering the voting age from the current twenty years old to eighteen years old...
