DPP heavyweights announced yesterday that they intend to propose amendments to the party's charter that would remove its founding pro-independence principles.
Senior officials said the proposal would be taken up at the party's central advisory committee meeting today, where they would put the removal of the "independence guidelines" on the table in an attempt to counter claims made during the election that the DPP's policies were dangerous.
"The independence guidelines should be regarded as a historical document and words such as `establishing the Republic of Taiwan' should be deleted," said Chen Chao-nan (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
He stressed that Taiwan's independent sovereignty has already been carried out by democratic developments, under which Taiwan-ese can now elect their own president freely and have already established a democratic legislature.
Chen said that the independence guidelines had become a weakness for the DPP, forcing its candidates onto the defensive in elections.
It is also a thorny issue in President-elect Chen Shui-bian's (
"The main point of our guidelines is `to use plebiscite measures' to establish an independent sovereign Republic of Taiwan," Chen said.
"Now we only need to delete `Republic of Taiwan' and `to rewrite the constitution' and then add `to firmly establish an independent sovereign and autonomous country, while any changes to the status quo should be decided by plebiscite.'"
Vice President-elect Annette Lu (
"It proves that the DPP is not a rigid party and realizes the importance of changing in order to face both the rest of the world and Taiwan's own society," Lu said.
President-elect Chen, meanwhile, made an appeal to Chinese leaders yesterday during a Presbyterian Church service in Taipei, saying that only with a considerate, humble heart can they truly seek peace in the Taiwan Strait.
Leaders of the DPP's Justice Alliance faction, organized by the president-elect in 1993, said that they agreed with the proposal to modify the pro-independence guidelines, but that the proper thing to do would be to revise all the party's guidelines, instead of focusing on one particular part.
"We should not only solve problems after they occur," said DPP legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁).
"We should offer a complete plan to modify our party guidelines in order to create a new image," he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS