Thanks to public concerns over mismanaged policies, the DPP's party headquarters plans to hold a number of policy conferences next month to prepare for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election bid.
The first set of talks is due to begin on Jan. 11 and is being organized, along with other future conferences, by the governments policy consulting committee that was formed last October.
The committee is attempting to paint a clearer picture of Taiwan's ongoing development and is scheduled to publish a policy whitepaper sometime between April and May.
It will hold a range of conferences to review problems currently plaguing Taiwan and the DPP -- problems that have mostly arisen out of disputes between political parties.
"If we don't do this, winning the 2004 presidential election would be impossible for us," said DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Michael Yuo (游盈隆) was appointed the committee's leader, while legislators Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) and Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) were selected as members.
Yuo explained that the DPP needs to formulate a sophisticated argument regarding further national development to convince the public and win back its fragmented support over the next 15 months.
He said that the committee would seek opinions from academics, professionals and non-governmental organizations from many different fields, such as education reform, financial reform and constitutional issues.
The committee's first project, the two-day Conference for Reform, which is scheduled to begin on Jan. 11, will promote the idea that key policies require immediate implementation before the 2004 elections.
Party members from the presidential office, Cabinet and Legislative Yuan will all be invited to attend the conference, while President Chen himself will chair the conference.
Lee explained that the party made some mistakes over the past two years, resulting in large demonstrations last month and its difficulties in clinching the Kaohsiung City mayoral election on Dec. 7.
"The conference will attempt to organize our policy implementation after suffering two difficult years under the current political and economic environments," Lee said.
In case the conclusions that the conference reaches are not put into effect, Lee and 10 other legislators have plotted an independent proposal that will ensure the crucial policies are considered. He said that the proposal, which include issues of unemployment and the three links, would be released as late as next Friday.
Under the plan, DPP members would promote the policies and the arguments published in the whitepaper through the media.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods