The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) national congress yesterday passed the party's "Normal Country" Resolution, maintaining the version approved by the party's Central Executive Committee on Thursday while rejecting a proposed amendment that stressed the need for the nation to change its official title to "Taiwan."
The final resolution stipulates that the nation should "accomplish rectification of the name `Taiwan' as soon as possible and write a new constitution." It also highlights the need for the nation to hold a referendum to "emphasize Taiwan's independent statehood at an appropriate time."
The congress passed the resolution with applause rather than resorting to a vote.
The congress, however, rejected a proposed amendment initiated by former chairman Yu Shyi-kun, who sought to include a clause that read: "Our nation should write a new constitution and correct its official title to `Taiwan.'"
Yu's proposal, endorsed by 37 congress representatives, only won 43 affirmative votes out of 328 representatives present at the congress.
Another similar proposed amendment endorsed by eight other representatives was also rejected by the congress as it only garnered 30 affirmative votes.
Yesterday's congress, titled "Normal Country. Happy Taiwan," was chaired by Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
Yu did not attend yesterday's congress.
A total of 328 out of 483 DPP representatives participated in yesterday's assembly.
The congress held a heated debate over whether to approve the executive committee version or to accept Yu's proposal.
Many representatives competed for the floor to defend or speak against Yu's proposal.
Supporters of the executive committee version included Secretary-General of the Presidential Office Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), Vice Premier Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) and Council of Hakka Affairs Vice Minister Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩).
Yesterday's session ended two hours earlier than scheduled because President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) decided not to attend. Both of them were scheduled to deliver speeches.
Yeh, who doubles as Hsieh's campaign director, announced Hsieh's decision minutes before the congress approved the executive committee version.
Yeh said that Hsieh had been pondering how to strike a balance between national security and the people's interests, adding that he had carried an "unbearable burden" during the party's recent wrangling over the resolution.
"The presidential candidate is very sad and worried [about party unity]," she said.
"He is also suffering from a serious cold," she said.
Hsieh's decision caught the party off guard because the party congress usually serves as a grand campaign event for its presidential and legislative candidates.
"Everyone showed great tolerance after the [presidential] primary. The party has reached a point where its members should stay united," said Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), Hsieh's campaign manager, when approached by reporters at the congress."Taiwanese consciousness has reached a peak after the rally [in support of the government's proposed referendum on seeking UN membership using the name `Taiwan'] on Sept. 15, but then came the problem of the resolution," Lee said. "[Former] premier [Hsieh] is very worried," Lee said. "He urges everyone to stay calm and rethink [the resolution issue] ... and to postpone the campaign event to some other day."
Hsieh's spokesman Chao Tien-lin (
After Yu's proposed amendment failed to win the support of the congress, DPP Ilan chapter Director Sung Hsiu-shu (
Earlier yesterday, DPP Chiayi chapter Director Chen Mao-sung (陳茂松), Kinmen chapter Director Chen Tsang-chiang (陳滄江), Taoyuan chapter Director Hsu Chung-wen (許崇文) and Sung staged a protest outside the congress.
Chen Mao-sung held a poster demanding a vote by roll call on Yu's proposed amendment during the congress, threatening to take joint action with other chapter directors to shut down all DPP district chapters.
"If the party does not dare to [specify] the name [for the country to pursue as] `Taiwan' in the resolution, how can we seek UN membership using the name `Taiwan?' Does this mean that the party is deceiving the public like [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate] Ma Ying-jeou (
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS