Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A tale of two National Day events

Chen Yung-chang 陳永昌

A few days ago the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US hosted its annual Double Ten National Day banquet at Twin Oaks estate in Washington.

A week earlier, the Chinese embassy in the US also hosted a national day reception. The contrast between the celebrations reflects the two nations’ state of relations with the US.

The Double Ten National Day banquet at Twin Oaks showcased Washington’s support for Taiwan. The highlight of this year’s event was the presence of US Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs, who was attending the celebration for the first time and stayed from beginning to end. McCaul’s attendance was especially important, as it came as former US House speaker Kevin McCarthy was being ousted.

Politicizing people’s health

Taipei Times Editorial

The annual government-funded influenza vaccination program was launched on Monday, offering people aged 65 or older and high-risk groups a quadrivalent flu vaccine before anyone else. This year there are four brands of vaccines, but some politicians are again using misinformation to stir fear among the public, causing some who need the vaccine the most to put it off or refuse to get vaccinated.

The four vaccines in the program are an egg-based vaccine by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, an egg-based vaccine by Taiwan-based Adimmune Corp, a cell-cultured vaccine manufactured in Germany by Taiwan-based TTY Biopharm Co Ltd, and — new to the program — an egg-based vaccine using ingredients from South Korea and filled by Taiwan-based Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp.

The crucial mistake in ‘blue-white alliance’

James Wang 王景弘

Robert Kennedy Jr, scion of the Massachusetts-based Kennedy political clan, is expected to announce tomorrow that he would not take part in any Democratic Party primary election, but would instead run as an independent candidate in next year’s US presidential election. This would pit him against fellow Democrat US President Joe Biden, who intends to run for re-election. The US media are not making a fuss about Kennedy’s plan to run, nor is anyone in the Democratic Party calling for “unity” or “consolidation,” or saying that anyone with low opinion poll ratings should quit the race. Indeed, Kennedy has the right to run if he wants to.

Voting and standing in elections are both statutory rights in any democracy. With the rules of the game set out beforehand, the emphasis is on open and fair competition, not allowing politicians to act as “kingmakers” by forcing political parties with different philosophies to cobble together a pair of electoral candidates. While such a “teamwork” strategy might be euphemistically called “uniting the opposition,” its real aim is to divide the spoils after winning the election, all in the name of “rotation of parties in government.”

Subs too vital to be politicized

Taipei Times Editorial

Admiral Huang Shu-kuang (黃曙光), who heads the Indigenous Defense Submarine program, would have been proud on Thursday last week as he attended the ceremony to launch the Hai Kun (海鯤), or “Narwhal.” The unveiling of the nation’s first domestically made submarine was a major milestone in what has been a long journey.

However, allegations by retired navy captain Kuo Hsi (郭璽) that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) shared information about the Hai Kun with China have prompted concerns about national security.

Huang apparently told Kuo through friends that he would prefer it if the matter were dealt with discretely. Huang, himself, had indicated that a legislator, who he did not name, had made elements of the components procurement process “difficult.”

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