Not a single article in the cross-strait service trade agreement was reviewed on the first day of the legislative review of the pact yesterday, as the meeting was marked by chaos, conflict and a standoff between the pan-green and the pan-blue camps.
Although the meeting was scheduled to begin at 9am yesterday morning, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators had camped out in the meeting room since Tuesday night, hoping to speak early in the review.
The first wave of clashes broke out at about 8am when clerks calling out legislators’ names on a sign-up sheet called DPP Legislator Ho Hsin-chun’s (何欣純) name, but Ho did not reply. DPP legislators Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) and Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) got into a fight — first verbally and later physically — with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) over whether Ho should be skipped.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
At the same time, KMT Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) jumped onto a table and began a verbal conflict.
Amid the chaos, KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠) took the sign-up sheet and walked out of the meeting room. DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) ran after him, stopping him in front of an elevator.
As the two pushed and shoved, Chang threw a bag with the sheet inside toward KMT Legislator Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏), but it landed on the head of a TV reporter.
Before anyone could work out what was happening, the bag was taken away by an unknown person.
“KMT legislators, please bring back the sign-up sheet, this is not how you should boycott a meeting in a democracy,” DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said.
KMT legislators Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Chiang Hui-chen (江惠貞) accused DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), who presided over the meeting, of allowing DPP lawmakers to sign up to speak before announcing the start of the meeting. Chen Chi-mai denied the accusation.
Since the meeting could not proceed without the sign-up sheet, the two camps remained in a standoff, randomly yelling at each other using loudspeakers, until the lunch break was called at noon.
The situation did not improve when the meeting resumed at 2:36pm.
“I hereby announce that the meeting has resumed and I would like to invite Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi [王郁琦] to deliver his presentation,” Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
However, KMT legislators insisted that Chen Chi-mai should first apologize for what occurred in the morning.
Unable to proceed with the meeting, Chen Chi-mai called for an adjournment, but KMT lawmakers ran to the podium and tried to take the microphones to prevent DPP legislators from speaking. DPP lawmakers resisted, and the two sides again engaged in physical and verbal conflicts.
The chaos continued until 5:30pm, when Chen Chi-mai declared that the meeting had been adjourned.
“I hereby announce that the meeting is adjourned for the day and will continue tomorrow,” Chen Chi-mai said. “I would like to ask KMT lawmakers to bring back the sign-up sheet, otherwise I may consider filing a charge of illegally seizing public property with police.”
The DPP caucus said that it would stay in the meeting room overnight.
Chen Chi-mai has scheduled another meeting for today to review the pact.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”
RSS