It’s been a terrible year with the pandemic going on, but that’s not the only big news in 2020 here in Taiwan. In January, we had our presidential election, which resulted in a landslide win for the DDP.
The incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen will again be our president for another 4 years. However, her opponent ‘Han Kuo-yu’, Mayor of Kaohsiung then, not only didn’t win the presidential election, was also ousted by a mayoral recall referendum in June.
Mr. Democracy
Our first directly elected president Lee Teng-hui ‘Taiwan’s father of democracy’ also died in July this year. Although he was credited with ending autocratic rule, we cannot ignore the fact that he brought on more than just democracy but the connections to gangsters and corruptions.
Tedros’s nose
This year I made a cartoon called Tedros’s nose back in April when Tedros Adhanom, the Director General of WHO accused Taiwan of launching a racist campaign against him. It ended up in le Courrier International featuring an article from Le Temps-Lausanne criticizing Tedros being too close to China.
WHO, being the leading organization facing this health crisis, was not doing a good job in alarming the COVID-19 outbreak in the early stage. Instead, it seemed to believe all the cover-ups and initial denials from Beijing.
Black Hawk Crash
Early this year, a Black Hawk helicopter crashed and killed eight military officers. One of them is actually the father of my uni classmate, I only knew about it when I saw her on TV holding an urn crying.
Pig Guts Flying
In August, President Tsai announced the import ban on pork from the US treated with the leanness drug would end next year and that the pork ban has been an obstacle to the signing of a bilateral trade agreement with the United States.
Of course, the announcement led to public demonstrations but surprisingly pig guts flying all over our parliament. I’m really sorry for the people who had to clean up after the mess.
US Election
I’ve heard people around me talking about who they would vote for, Trump or Biden. Weirdly enough, a lot of them told me being a Taiwanese they’d support Trump, because he’s in favor of Taiwan for waging an economic war with China.
But if they were American, they’d definitely vote for Biden.
There’s only a few days left till 2021, finger crossed for a peaceful holiday.
Cartoons by Stellina 