Wang Mei-yu (王美玉), president of Chinese-language newspaper the China Times, was appointed to a six-year term as a Control Yuan member yesterday, the first acting media professional to be tapped for the job.
The Presidential Office yesterday unveiled its list of 29 members of the fifth-term Control Yuan. It was the second time President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made the appointments during his presidency.
Wang was the third veteran journalist appointed to the position, following Huang Chao-heng (黃肇珩), who was general manager of Cheng Chung Book Co when nominated in 1993, and incumbent Control Yuan member Wu Feng-shan (吳豐山), who was previously a minister without portfolio.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“My 32-year career in journalism came to an end today,” Wang said.
Wang said she accepted the nomination and immediately resigned as president of the China Times, part of the Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團) owned by Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明).
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) yesterday questioned Wang’s qualifications for the position.
“A member of the Control Yuan must be above partisanship and apolitical, but Wang has long worked with a media outlet that holds strong political views,” he said.
Among the 29 nominees, including Election Commission Chairperson Chang Po-ya (張博雅) being appointed president of the Control Yuan and former Council of Indigenous Peoples minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川) being nominated as vice president, only seven were incumbent members.
Liao Pen-chuan (廖本全), an associate professor at National Taipei University’s Department of Real Estate and Built Environment, was disappointed with the appointment of Shih Hung-chih (施鴻志), a retired professor of urban planning, because of Shih’s record handling controversial land expropriations.
Shih had demanded that reporters be excluded from a review of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, one of the government’s flagship urban renewal projects that covers more than 3,000 hectares of land and affects more than 7,000 households, last year when he chaired a meeting as a member of the Ministry of the Interior’s urban planning commission.
The reason Shih then cited for the ejection order was that public interest was not a factor being considered by the commission.
As a professional expert whom the government has long consulted with on urban renewal and planning issues over the years, Shih has overlooked the importance of public participation in the decisionmaking process, Liao said.
The way he handled the review of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project showed Shih disregarded the values of democracy, human rights, justice and sustainability, which are all vital to ensure that such projects are in the best interests of the public, Liao said.
With the departure of Control Yuan members Ma Yi-kung (馬以工), Liu Yuh-san (劉玉山) and Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), who have identified several major flaws in land expropriation cases over the years, and the appointment of Shih, the only candidate among the 29 with a background in urban planning, people facing eviction from their homes as urban renewal efforts mushroom could be left helpless when they turn to the Control Yuan for help, Liao said.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS