KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun has issued a clear instruction to the party's legislators: in Hsinchu County, they are to throw their weight behind their own candidate and not campaign for the Taiwan People's Party nominee — in effect drawing a boundary around blue-white cooperation at the local level.

• At a closed-door meeting, Cheng asked legislators not to appear at campaign events for Chiu Chen-yuan, the TPP's candidate for mayor of Zhubei City.
• She stressed that blue-white cooperation is limited to the level of city and county magistrate races; in other elections, the party must respect its own procedures and support KMT candidates.
• Hsu Hsin-ying, the candidate for Hsinchu County magistrate, is the KMT's nominee and must have the party's full support — Hsinchu County has to be won.
• She is concerned that spillover effects from blue-white cooperation could hurt Hsu Hsin-ying, and does not want the infighting in Hsinchu to keep making headlines.
• Responding to outside suspicions of backroom deals and carving up the spoils, she said any cooperation would be set down in black and white and could not be decided privately by any individual.

Outlook: Below the magistrate and mayoral level, the KMT and TPP look set to campaign separately, and friction in Hsinchu could well continue to build in the near term.