Following a third failed attempt by opposition parties to hold a referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday called on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to support another referendum proposal or face a boycott at next week’s provisional legislative session.
“Let’s not get into fistfights on the floor. Let’s put the [ECFA] to a referendum and see who wins the support of the public,” DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) told a press conference.
Lawmakers across party lines yesterday agreed to hold a second provisional legislative session, which is expected to start on Monday and last two weeks. The session will be held to review the ECFA, which was signed between Taiwan and China in June.
However, the divisions that led to the collapse of the first extra session early last month — whether the legislature can amend the ECFA, whether to vote on the trade pact article-by-article and whether to deliberate bills unrelated to the ECFA — have not been settled.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the party would submit a proposal calling on the legislature to initiate a referendum on the ECFA and restrict the agenda of the provisional session to only the proposed referendum and the ECFA.
“Other bills the KMT wishes to push through in the provisional session are not urgent,” he said.
Through the Referendum Act (公民投票法), the legislature is entitled to introduce a referendum on “important policies.”
The act stipulates that if the legislature adopts a referendum proposal, it may submit the main text and statement of reason directly to the Central Election Commission for implementation.
A legislature-initiated referendum bid requires no review from the Referendum Review Committee, which rejected on technicalities two referendum proposals on the ECFA introduced by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), and one by the DPP. The latest bid by the TSU was rejected on Wednesday.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said the KMT had not changed its position that the session should include a meeting with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to answer questions by lawmakers, that the contents of the ECFA can be deliberated on an item-by-item basis and that a vote should only be held on the trade pact as a whole.
The DPP disagrees that the ECFA needs to be voted on as whole, saying it should be voted on item by item.
Lin said the KMT intends to include on the session’s agenda amendments allowing Taiwanese universities to accept Chinese students, an overhaul of the national health insurance system, the categorization of rice wine as cooking wine and the elimination of preferential treatment for retired heads of state convicted in a first trial.
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
‘ADDITIONAL CONDITION’: Taiwan will work with like-minded countries to protect its right to participate in next year’s meeting, the foreign ministry said The US will “continue to press China for security arrangements and protocols that safeguard all participants when attending APEC meetings in China,” a US Department of State spokesperson said yesterday, after Beijing suggested that members must adhere to its “one China principle” to participate. “The United States insists on the full and equal participation of all APEC member economies — including Taiwan — consistent with APEC’s guidelines, rules and established practice, as affirmed by China in its offer to host in 2026,” the unnamed spokesperson said in response to media queries about China putting a “one China” principle condition on Taiwan’s
RSS