American Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar ended a four-day visit to Taiwan today, visiting the Taipei Guest House to pay his respects to recently deceased former president Lee Teng-hui before returning to America on a flight scheduled for the afternoon...
Comments by Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je at the TPP's first national congress last week are telling about the current political orientation of the party, as well as the challenges it faces going forward. Ko raised eyebrows by calling for a ‘Silent Revolution” in Taiwanese politics at the party congress, a pointed criticism of the Tsai administration indicative of the party’s pan-Blue leanings. At the same time, Ko did not lean as heavily into pan-Blue rhetoric as much as he did during the TPP’s founding one year ago...
More troubles are ahead for the NPP, with the departure of the party’s two Taipei city councilors in the wake of corruption allegations against former party chair and legislator Hsu Yung-ming that emerged earlier this month...
Controversy broke out earlier this month regarding public broadcaster PTS and plans for PTS to launch an international English-language media platform. Plans for the platform were abruptly canceled after resistance from PTS board members, leading to the resignation of three out of fifteen board members. Among those that resigned included PTS’ president, vice president, and the manager of its news department...
An ongoing corruption probe into a group of pan-Green and pan-Blue politicians accused of taking bribes in a case related to the ownership of the Pacific SOGO department store chain has the potential to be a major corruption scandal faced by the DPP under the Tsai administration...
As with the death of any major political figure, one of the consequences of Lee Teng-hui’s death has been that political figures of all persuasions have rushed to praise Lee. This has been ironic, in many ways...
Rumors that former president Lee Teng-hui had died swept across social media late yesterday night, with many online influencers posting tributes to and eulogies for Lee. Although Lee's health is poor and he is currently hospitalized, such rumors were unfounded. However, as rumors regarding Lee's death were primarily amplified by social media influencers, this gestures toward how online influencers prove a weak link where issues regarding disinformation and misinformation in Taiwan are concerned...
Taiwan marked one hundred days since the last case of domestic transmission of COVID-19 on July 17th, with the last case of local COVID-19 transmission having taken place on April 8th. It appears as though the COVID-19 situation is still under control in Taiwan, Taiwan having managed to avoid the expansive lockdowns that the rest of the world has seen. However, with the second and third waves of COVID-19 taking place globally and five new imported cases added today, Taiwan is likely to see an uptick in imported cases going forward...
Following allegations that KMT Kaohsiung mayoral by-election candidate Jane Lee, also known as Li Mei-jhen, plagiarized 96% of her master’s thesis, an unusual political spat has broken out between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps. Members of the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps are now slinging allegations of plagiarism against members of the other political camp...
Judicial reform proponents came into conflict with the Tsai administration over its plans to introduce a lay judge system in Taiwan, rather than a jury trial system, earlier this month. However, the results of a vote by the Legislative Yuan earlier this week resulted in the implementation of a lay judge system, rather than a jury system...