søndag 11. april 2021

Interview: "People in Taiwan Are Much More Vigilant"

Huang Jie, a municipal councilor in the southern Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung since 2018, was subjected to a bid to unseat her earlier this year, after she spoke out against a draconian crackdown on political opposition and peaceful dissent in Hong Kong, which China has held up as a model under which it wants to take control of Taiwan. Huang shot to fame in Taiwan in 2019 after she rolled her eyes at then-Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu as she questioned him during a meeting, earning herself the media nickname "Goddess of the Eyeroll."

Huang won plaudits from people concerned about Han's plans for a trade agreement with China for pinning Han down in a bid to figure out exactly what such an agreement would entail. Han, who was elected on a pro-China, pro-business platform for the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), went on to lose his job in 2020 to a voter recall campaign, in which more than 97 percent of those who voted wanted him gone.