While Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) promise yesterday to enact a law regulating pacts with China before resuming the process of deliberating the cross-strait service trade pact won kudos from the opposition, it was rejected by the Presidential Office and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus.
An hour or so after Wang, a KMT member, pledged that before the enactment of the law, which has been called for by the student-led protesters occupying the legislature, he will not hold any inter-party negotiation about the controversial trade pact, the KMT caucus told a press conference that it was not informed and was “shocked” to hear Wang’s pledge.
The KMT caucus said that those KMT members who were present during Wang’s talk did not know the content of his speech beforehand and “do not endorse the announcement that Wang has made.”
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
KMT legislators Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池), Alex Fai (費鴻泰) and -Chiang Hui-chen (江惠貞), who accompanied Wang during his visit to the legislature, told the press conference that they were “startled” upon hearing Wang’s comments because they had had no idea what it was about beforehand.
The promise Wang made about not convening cross-party negotiations until the legislation of an oversight mechanism has been completed has been interpreted by the students and some media as concurring with the students’ demand of “legislation before reviewing [the service trade agreement],” said Lin, the KMT caucus whip.
“However, we have to emphasize that the KMT caucus’ stance has always been that the two [the legislation and the review] can be carried out on parallel tracks,” Lin said in a rebuttal to the interpretation.
Fei, the KMT caucus deputy secretary, said he felt the party was “betrayed and sold out” by Wang, who “did not communicate with the party caucus before releasing the statement and made us who stood beside him appear to blindly endorse his views.”
“Despite [Wang’s] assertion that he did not inform anyone about his statement before making it public, it seemed that DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and the students had all known about Wang’s intention before he went to the legislative chamber,” Fei added.
Lin also took the opportunity to underline the validity of all the conclusions made by the cross-party negotiations staged before Wang’s speech yesterday.
“DPP had agreed to have a clause-by-clause discussion and vote in last year’s inter-party negotiation. To say not to carry out negotiation anymore does not mean that the former ones are no longer binding,” Lin said.
He then called on the students to leave the Legislative Yuan immediately for the 10 versions of the draft bill on cross-strait agreements oversight mechanism “to be handed to the committee by the legislative floor meeting.”
Lin said the non-government version of the draft will also be included.
“You keep saying the legislation is to be done prior to the review, but the reality is that we cannot even legislate now with the floor being occupied,” he said.
When asked whether the KMT would, if the students retreated, positively respond to the their demand of “legislate first, review next,” Lin repeated that the two can be carried out simultaneously and that “the cross-strait service trade agreement was signed “not without a legal base,” referring to the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), “according to which a total 19 [cross-strait] agreements have already been signed.”
Separately yesterday, Ker rebutted the KMT caucus’ remarks, saying that more than 20 KMT lawmakers stood behind Wang as he made his speech and that they all raised their hands with Wang after he completed the speech, chanting: “Taiwan, jia you [加油, an expression of encouragement],” several times.
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called again for the early passage of the pact.
Ma had no knowledge beforehand of either Wang’s morning visit to protesters at the Legislative Yuan or his promise that the legislature will not review the pact until a law monitoring cross-strait agreements is enacted, Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang and CNA
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS