Taiwanese scholar Lee Chung-hsien has publicly compared Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an with legislator Puma Shen, stating bluntly that if "thinking ability" were the only criterion, he would choose Puma Shen — a negative signal for Chiang Wan-an, who has already been labelled a script-reader.

• Chiang Wan-an frequently reads from a script and gives answers that miss the question during council questioning and when facing the media, earning him the online nickname "the Chiang script machine."
• Lee Chung-hsien said he has interacted with Puma Shen privately on several occasions and felt the latter first digests a question and then reorganises information to answer it, rather than reciting memorised sentences.
• He stressed that being able to think does not mean the answers are correct, nor does it mean all of the policy positions involved are worth supporting.
• What really matters, he said, is whether a person can still produce their own judgement and take responsibility once the prepared script no longer works.
• He argued that sudden situations such as war, disaster or an epidemic do not follow a verbatim transcript, and that voters are choosing "the person who generates the answers."

Outlook: The remarks effectively set the tone in advance for a possible Taipei mayoral showdown, with the two men's ability to respond on the spot set to become a focus of the campaign.