Entrusted with the mission of ensuring the security of the president and the capital, the military police have traditionally kept its distance from the public. But that stereotype is now changing, due to ideas introduced by a new leader.
The military police are now closer to the public than at any other time and have made changes to allow for a level of transparency never seen before.
Military police commander Lieutenant General Yu Lien-fa (
Since taking command last February, Yu has introduced a lot of new ideas into the military police, which used to be the most mysterious branch of the military.
Improved relations with the press is just one of the changes that Yu has brought about.
For example, earlier this week Yu called a press conference to explain why the military police bought two new Lincoln sedans to be used by President Chen Shui-bian (
Such a move by the military police, prompted by a "misinformed" news report, was unprecedented. None of Yu's predecessors had done anything of the kind.
At the press conference, Yu answered questions from the press like a first-line information officer and demonstrated his ability to communicate.
Last summer, Yu made a similar groundbreaking move. He invited the press to have a dinner at the headquarters of the military police command in Taipei.
Yu took advantage of the occasion to clarify misunderstandings by some newspapers regarding his invitation to President Chen to attend an earlier gathering of military police reserves.
Chen's presence at the gathering of military police reserves was interpreted by some pro-unification newspapers as an attempt to win their support in the 2004 presidential election.
Many of Yu's subordinates were quite impressed by their new commander's ability to think on his feet and handle problems quickly and efficiently.
Yu's crisis-management capability helps the military police win recognition from the public for greater transparency and flexibility.
Yu is generally known to have good relations with the president. Before serving as the chief of the military police, he first served as the chief of the presidential guard.
Yu is the first native Taiwanese to head the military police, which until now has always been led by generals with Chinese origins.
In the past, military police commanders were lieutenant generals in the army. Many of them, though not all, were promoted to three-star general after their terms in the military police.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater