President Chen Shui-bian (
In his opening remark at the anti-nuclear convention in Taipei, Chen said the future of the plant would be decided by the people through a referendum, which would be held no later than the March presidential election.
Chen said the two decades of controversy over the plant have taken too great a toll on society.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"I believe the public has been fully aware of information about the plant. It's time for people to make a final decision through a referendum," Chen said.
He said the referendum is a right of citizens and would strengthen parliamentary politics.
"This right can't be deprived or limited by any country, political party or person," Chen said.
He stressed that holding a referendum on the plant would fulfill a promise made by the DPP.
"We do so based on concerns about Taiwan's future energy policy and sustainable development rather than for the establishment of a legal basis for related laws mandating referendums," Chen said.
Chen said going nuclear-free reflects both an adjustment of values and a choice of lifestyle.
He said the country should promote energy conservation and the adoption of renewable energy in order to ensure environmental sustainability.
In addition, Chen said problems with the relocation of nuclear waste stored on Orchid Island would be solved by the end of the year.
Chen said the power plant isn't the only policy that can be put to a referendum.
Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
Minister without Portfolio Hsu Chih-hsiung (
Residents of Kungliao, where the controversial plant is being built, said at the conference that a regional referendum held in 1994 in the township suggested that 96 percent of residents are against the plant.
If free access to information on the plant and transparency of the decision-making process remain unavailable, the nationwide referendum would sacrifice Kungliao for economic development, said Wu Wen-tung (吳文通), spokesman for the Kungliao-based Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Association.
At the conference, topics included strategies to phase out nuclear energy, the decommissioning of existing nuclear plants, the adoption of renewable energy and the disposal of nuclear waste. The experiences of the US, Japan and Sweden were also presented.
Meanwhile, blasting air horns and waving signs, more than 1,000 employees of state-run Taiwan Power Company demonstrated outside the convention, expressing their opposition to the planned phase-out of nuclear energy.
"The referendum should not be applied to the ongoing project," Taiwan Power Labor Union Director-General Shih Chao-hsien (施朝賢) said.
Shih said that terminating the project would cause at least NT$150 billion in financial losses.
Anti-nuclear activists, meanwhile, said halting construction of the plant was the first step toward making the nation nuclear-free. They urged the government to freeze the budget for the new plant and to enhance security at the three operational nuclear plants.
Also see stories:
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has