President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday urged the military to stride forward at a steady pace amid public criticism over recent controversial incidents implicating military officers, pledging to not shirk her responsibility as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces and to push for drastic reforms.
“Over the past few days, some incidents occurred within the armed forces. I believe all of you are worried and, in the face of criticism from all sectors of society, upset or even feel dispirited just like me,” Tsai said in a speech during a joint graduation ceremony of the Military Academy, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, National Defense University and National Defense Medical Center in Kaohsiung yesterday morning.
Calling on the military to have the courage to face its mistakes and challenges, Tsai said the greater the frustration soldiers encounter, the larger steps they should take in their march forward.
Photo: CNA
Tsai said she would not sugarcoat recent controversies involving the military and tell them that everything about the nation’s armed forces is positive.
“Saying so while standing right here would make me an irresponsible commander-in-chief. I will not evade problems, nor will I shirk my responsibility. Our armed forces require reforms and they should be bold and drastic reforms,” Tsai said.
Tsai’s speech came on the heels of the navy’s accidental launching of a locally developed Hsiung Feng III missile from a 500-tonne Chinchiang-class corvette at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung during a drill on Friday last week.
Photo: CNA
The missile struck a Taiwanese fishing boat, the Hsiang Li Sheng (翔利昇), operating in waters southeast of Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait, killing its captain, Huang Wen-chung (黃文忠), and injuring three crew members.
The missile blunder further fueled a public outcry directed at the military, which had faced an outpouring of criticism over the killing of a dog by marines at a military base late last month.
The president said the key problems facing the nation’s armed forces include military officers’ lack of strategic guidance, defense resources, the size of the army, arms and the gap between national defense construction and economic development.
Photo: CNA
“We will also reform the military’s system and culture. The superficial formality, waste of manpower and insufficiency are all focuses of our reform,” Tsai said, vowing to make military officers gradually see changes in the armed forces’ system.
Later yesterday, Tsai paid her respects to Huang’s family in Kaohsiung, accompanied by National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said Tsai, in her capacity as commander-in-chief, extended her sincerest apologies to Huang Wen-chung’s wife and other family members, and vowed to ascertain the truth about the incident as soon as possible.
Alex Huang said Tsai told the victim’s family that she has instructed the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Justice to form an ad hoc group to investigate the incident.
As Huang Wen-chung was his household’s main source of income, Tsai also asked Chen and the defense ministry to help the victim’s family apply for state compensation, Alex Huang said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS