Senior Presidential Adviser Wu Li-pei (
After their two-hour talk yesterday morning, Wu said he could feel Chen's sincerity in his belief that he did not abandon his ideals or betray the Taiwanese people by reaching a 10-point consensus with People First Party Chairman James Soong (
"I am willing to give President Chen the benefit of the doubt, and thus I've decided, for now, to not resign and stay on as a senior presidential advisor," Wu said yesterday at a press conference.
Stating that the row over resignation had gotten out of hand, Wu called on the public to let go of the event and urged them to turn their attention to "what supposedly is the more urgent matter -- China's proposed `anti-secession law.'"
Wu said he had told the president during their chat that he, as well as many overseas Taiwanese he represents, "were disappointed by Chen's positions in his meeting with Soong."
Wu, like several presidential and national policy advisors who were irked by Chen's positions at the meeting last Thursday -- as well as the 10-point consensus which was produced as result -- tendered his resignation on Tuesday in protest.
The agreement included Chen's reiteration that during his time in office, he would not promote independence or change the country's official name.
"Just because I decide to stay at the post does not mean I completely accept the 10-point consensus, although the truth is that the consensus did not upset me that much, since it's basically in line with what Chen said before," said Wu, a long-time overseas Taiwanese independence advocate who gave up his US citizenship last July to return to Taiwan and to serve as a senior advisor.
"What I found the most disappointing was Chen's performance and rhetoric at the press conference [following the meeting with Soong]," Wu said.
"When Soong said that he is `proud to be a person from Hunan [Province in China] and proud to be Chinese,' why then didn't President Chen rebut by saying he is proud to be a person from Tainan and proud to be a Taiwanese? He just simply stood idly by and said nothing," Wu added.
Despite the statement that the future of the nation should be decided by the 23 million people of Taiwan, Soong said during the press conference that "Taiwan independence is definitely not an option to the PFP."
This also frustrated Wu: "Why didn't Chen counter that by reiterating that Taiwan's future should be decided by Taiwan's 23 million people?"
"Chen told me that that's what he was thinking at the time, but I told him if you didn't say what you think, how will the people know?" Wu said.
"I told the president that the most important thing right now is to make up for [the meeting] by coming out and making a clear explanation to the public," he added.
When asked whether he was concerned about how his decision to stay would be interpreted by outsiders, Wu said he was not worried.
"I am not a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nor the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)," Wu said. "I care only about Taiwan. It is the only thing that drives me in what I do."
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS