For weeks, Taiwan’s two main opposition parties were edging toward a coalition, in a bid to unseat the island democracy’s governing party in the coming presidential election, an outcome that Beijing would welcome. The election, one elder statesman from Taiwan’s opposition said, was a choice between war and peace. This week, though, the two parties — which both argue that they are better able to ensure peace with China — chose in spectacular fashion to go to war against each other. An incipient deal for a joint presidential ticket between…
Tag: Gou, Terry (1950- )
Taiwan’s Opposition Picks Hou Yu-ih, a Moderate, for Presidential Race
Once a dominant political force, Taiwan’s main opposition party lost the last two presidential elections in large part because it has promoted closer ties with China. Now, faced with voters who have been alarmed by Beijing’s aggression toward the island, the Kuomintang is placing its hopes on a new type of candidate: a popular local leader with a blank slate on the thorny question of China. The Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, on Wednesday nominated as its presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih, a 66-year-old, two-term mayor of New Taipei City and former…