As the indefinite hunger strike by former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) enters its fourth day today, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is to meet with DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to address Lin’s demands.
The 73-year-old Lin began his hunger strike on Tuesday demanding that the Ma administration respect the will of the people and halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Insisting that the decades-long issue should be put to a vote in a referendum in accordance with the Referendum Act (公民投票法), Ma has brushed off suggestions to resolve the crisis, including those proposed by several lawmakers from his own party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The Referendum Act has been dubbed a “birdcage” law that is structurally flawed so that any referendum is doomed to fail, mainly because of its high thresholds.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) met with KMT lawmakers at 5pm yesterday to ensure the lawmakers toe the party line, ahead of a meeting of the legislative plenary session today in which the DPP plans to table a statute that would allow a referendum on the plant to be decided by a simple majority vote.
After two-and-a-half hours of discussions, Jiang convinced some KMT lawmakers, who had earlier advised the government to respond positively to the demands made by Lin and the DPP to end Lin’s hunger strike, to change their positions.
The two conclusions reached at the meeting strictly followed what Ma and Jiang proposed.
First, the government will proceed with construction of the plant and ongoing safety checks and tests, but it will not install fuel rods and will not activate the plant until a referendum is held to decide whether it can be put into operation.
Second, all KMT lawmakers are required to attend the legislative meeting today to block the DPP’s plans to pass the special statute, or else they will face party discipline.
Earlier yesterday, KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) told a group of reporters that he was against the idea of putting the issue to a referendum.
Lin said at the time that he would suggest that the legislature pass a resolution allowing the Executive Yuan to announce, without having to hold a referendum, that the construction of the plant will continue to completion and safety checks and tests will be performed, but the plant will not be activated.
KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) had said that the Executive Yuan should announce a halt to the construction of the plant immediately after the legislature adopts a resolution to support its proposed plan to scrap the facility.
KMT lawmakers Alex Tsai (蔡正元), Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) and Chiang Hui-chen (江惠貞), among others, who had floated other proposals, did not force their ideas through at the meeting.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
RSS