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"The independence guidelines should be regarded as a historical document and words such as `establishing the Republic of Taiwan' should be deleted," said Chen Chao-nan (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.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
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