Ko apologizes for ‘seppuku’ comment

WANNA BET? After two city councilors said they would resign if part of an urban renewal project was finished on time, the mayor said they should kill themselves

By Sean Lin / Staff reporter





Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he had apologized to Taipei City Councilor Chen Cheng-chung (陳政忠) for an inappropriate remark he made.

The mayor had said Chen should “perform seppuku” — ritual suicide by disembowelment — if the Taipei City Government meets the schedule it set for an urban renewal project.

On Thursday last week, Ko told Taipei Department of Urban Development Commissioner Lin Jou-min (林洲民) that Lin should have challenged Chen, an independent, and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新), to perform seppuku when the two expressed dissatisfaction with the city government’s efforts to drive urban renewal in the Nanjichang area (南機場) of the Wanhua District (萬華).

Earlier that day, Chen and Lee had told Lin at a meeting of the Taipei City Council that they would resign if the city government completed 600 intermediate housing units for use by residents affected by the urban renewal project within four years, as the department has planned.

Weighing in on the matter later in the day at a forum discussing the city’s urban renewal projects, Ko sparked controversy when he said to Lin: “Why did you not raise the stakes? You should have told them to perform seppuku instead.”

Asked to comment on his remark on Friday, the mayor said it was meant as a joke.

“I still cannot resist a chance to tell a joke. I need to shake this bad habit,” Ko said.

Ko said that he had called Chen and Lee to apologize, but Lee did not answer the telephone.

Chen yesterday confirmed receiving a call from Ko, but said that it was the Nanjichang project that he cared about, not the mayor’s apology.

“The bottom line is, we need to find a solution to the problem. I do not care whether he apologizes,” Chen said.

Chen said that the project has been beleaguered by a host of problems, including a two-year-long procedure to clear an apartment building for the government-led project, as well as a confusing legal process to determine the eligibility of home owners who want to take part in the project.

“The project involves more than 2,000 households and there is no way that the city government will be able to meet its goals,” Chen said.

Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) urged Ko to “watch his big mouth.”

“How can you tell jokes when you have not achieved anything? On top of that, it was a lame joke,” Wang said.

More than 60 percent of Taipei residents live in apartments between 30 and 40 years old that are in desperate need of renewal, Wang said, adding that he doubted whether any such resident would share Ko’s sense of humor.

Wang called on the city to drop plans to build intermediate housing and instead concentrate efforts on rehousing Nanjichang residents, as temporary housing would only be used for two to three years, after which people would move back to their revamped homes.

“The city government should just issue subsidies to residents to help them pay rent during the temporary relocation. The interest generated from the costs of building intermediate buildings alone would be more than their rents,” he said.