Kuomintang Yilan County magistrate candidate Wu Tsung-hsien has unveiled a cross-county cooperation platform — good news for young people in Yilan who want to work in their hometown.

• Wu paid a visit to Taoyuan City Council Speaker Chiu Yi-sheng, pledging that if elected he will push for "Five Yilan-Taoyuan Links" connecting industry, tourism, culture, sports and education.
• Industry is the focus: only 40 percent of the land at the Yilan Science Park is currently in use, and he wants to bring in low-pollution, high-value-added industries such as AI and silicon photonics packaging and testing.
• On tourism, he would package the Northern Cross-Island Highway — running from Daxi and Fuxing in Taoyuan to Zhuangwei in Yilan — as a "phytoncide highway," while on culture he is promoting exchanges between the two areas' signature festivals.
• This builds on the "Yilan Line +1" concept he put forward in March, under which Yilan would take the initiative in forming alliances with neighbouring counties and cities including Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung and Taoyuan, as well as Hsinchu City, Hsinchu County and Miaoli.

Outlook: With the campaign heating up, cross-county cooperation proposals of this kind are expected to become the main policy battleground in the Yilan county magistrate election.