Chuang Ching-cheng attacks Kao Hung-an over broken promises and stolen credit

Political conflict and sparring in Hsinchu City are escalating once again. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator and Hsinchu City mayoral candidate Chuang Ching-cheng recently held a public press conference, launching sharp criticisms against the governance performance of incumbent Mayor Kao Hung-an since she assumed office. Chuang pointed out that the various policy proposals on education, transportation, and livelihood infrastructure put forward by Kao during her campaign have largely fallen through in practice. He stated that not only has she failed to fulfill the promises initially made to citizens, but she has also directly claimed credit for major construction projects planned and executed during the tenure of former Hsinchu City Mayor Lin Chih-chien.

Faced with these strong accusations and challenges from his opponent, Kao Hung-an's team responded immediately, emphasizing that the city government team has worked day and night to advance municipal administration since taking office, and that the progress and achievements of various constructions are evident to all and should not be easily negated by political rhetoric and deliberate obliteration. This debate surrounding the attribution of political achievements and the direction of urban development not only highlights the sensitive political atmosphere in Hsinchu City amid the alternation of pan-Blue, pan-Green, and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) powers, but it has also reignited widespread discussion on core issues such as local autonomy and the continuity of governance between former and current administrations.

Reviewing the background of the entire incident, Hsinchu City, as Taiwan's high-tech hub, has always attracted nationwide attention regarding its urban development and public construction. During the DPP's administration, Lin Chih-chien shaped a youthful, progressive, and vibrant urban image through a series of policies including aesthetic transformation, pedestrian-friendly city initiatives, campus reconstruction, and the construction of a children's hospital. These projects became signature examples of the DPP's local governance at the time. However, following the party rotation in the 2022 local elections, TPP member Kao Hung-an took charge of the Hsinchu City Government, inheriting massive construction projects left by the previous administration along with subsequent political scrutiny.

During the handover process, the old and new administrative teams held numerous divergent views regarding public engineering acceptances, budget utilization, and planning directions. As her term progresses, public expectations and scrutiny regarding the administrative efficiency of the new city government have gradually intensified. Whether campaign promises are fulfilled and whether construction progress is lagging naturally became core focuses for opposition parties and public representatives supervising municipal administration, laying a profound political groundwork for Chuang's recent public critique.

The core focus of Chuang's accusations lies in the phenomena of "broken campaign promises" and "taking credit for others' work." He argued that the grand blueprint proposed by Kao during her campaign regarding Hsinchu City's traffic bottlenecks, the allocation of educational resources, and the improvement of aging basic infrastructure has lacked substantive progress during her actual tenure. Many projects have stagnated, leaving citizens unable to feel substantive changes and resulting in a standstill in municipal affairs. What has further dissatisfied the Green camp is that when publicizing certain completed or soon-to-be-completed projects, the Kao administration often packages them as achievements of the incumbent team, even though these projects—from land acquisition, planning and design, to main construction—were actually finalized and heavily budgeted during Lin Chih-chien's mayoral term. Chuang thus called on Hsinchu City residents to see the current situation clearly and use their votes and supervisory power to end the stagnation, returning Hsinchu City to a well-planned and efficient path of development.

Faced with overwhelming political pressure and accusations from her opponent, Hsinchu City Mayor Kao Hung-an and her city government team did not choose to remain silent, quickly launching a counterattack and providing clarifications. The Kao camp emphasized that since taking office, the city government team has approached every construction project concerning public welfare with caution. Whether it is fine-tuning traffic improvement plans, upgrading campus safety, or maintaining and updating various livelihood infrastructures, all efforts are executed based on the spirit of scientific governance and pragmatism.

Regarding the accusation of "harvesting the previous administration's achievements," Kao's team pointed out that public construction has continuity. When taking over unfinished business from the previous administration, the city government must shoulder the heavy responsibility of clarifying issues, supplementing budgets, and even correcting flaws in the original designs. The effort and actual results expended during these processes can never be obliterated by a simple assertion of "claiming it as one's own." The city government called on the outside world to return to rational discussions on municipal construction itself rather than reducing public affairs to an endless political war of words.

From a broader political and social perspective, this battle over political achievements in Hsinchu City is a fairly typical and widespread phenomenon in Taiwan's local autonomy. Whenever a change of ruling party occurs, disputes between the newly elected leader and the previous team regarding historical merits and demerits, project continuity, and the attribution of achievements emerge endlessly. For voters, the war of words among politicians may be dazzling, but the true core interest always lies in the city's long-term development and the enhancement of quality of life.

Whether it is the foundation laid by the previous administration or the subsequent execution and revision by the incumbent team, what citizens ultimately expect is a livable city capable of solving traffic congestion, providing a quality educational environment, and ensuring public safety. This offensive and defensive exchange triggered by Chuang Ching-cheng and Kao Hung-an not only tests Hsinchu citizens' satisfaction with the status quo once again, but it will also continue to influence future political dynamics and public opinion trends regarding the promotion of major construction projects in Hsinchu City.

Source of facts: Central News Agency.