Premier Yu Shyi-kun seems to have played a marginal role in recent government policy-making and some say his poor performance has eroded President Chen Shui-bian's (
Opposition KMT and PFP legislative caucuses yesterday even ridiculed Yu's influence as the nation's highest administrative officer as "evaporating from this veil of tears."
"What President Chen has done recently clearly encroaches on the constitutional authority of the Executive Yuan and causes administrative disorder," said KMT legislative caucus Secretary-General Liu Cheng-hung (
DPP legislative caucus Secretary-General Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), however, retorted by saying that Liu was clueless about the situation.
"His remarks simply demonstrated his ignorance because what the premier did in the fight against SARS has been well documented by the media," Chen Chi-mai said.
Jumping to Yu's defense, Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday that the relationship between the premier and the president has never been stronger.
"The talk about the relationship turning sour is totally groundless and it's unfair to the premier," Lin said. "I hope opposition lawmakers will offer more encouragement and constructive opinions than irrational criticism."
Lin said that recent government policies to deal with the SARS crisis -- including extending the deadline for some tax returns, leave restrictions on military personnel and nationwide temperature checks -- were first proposed by the premier and then approved by the president.
Although Chen Shui-bian does not have the constitutional authority to interfere in certain domestic affairs, he did -- during a videoconference with Yu on Monday -- instruct the Cabinet to study the possibility of extending by one month the June 2 deadline for filing last year's tax returns.
Chen Shui-bian also asked the Ministry of National Defense to loosen restrictions on military leave, which have been in place since May 13 to help prevent the spread of SARS.
The leave restrictions had created discontent within the military because Chen Shui-bian's son, Chen Chih-chung (
Responding to the proposal made by Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (
In yet another surprising move, Chen on May 20 asked the Cabinet to push for a referendum on the country's entry into the World Health Organization following the nation's failed bid to join the World Health Assembly.
The Cabinet was once again caught off guard on May 24 when Chen Shui-bian announced that the government would spend approximately NT$120 billion to build three separate rail links to CKS International Airport, in an effort to boost local economies affected by SARS.
The decision shelved an earlier six-year effort to have private contractors construct the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project.
A day earlier, Chen announced that he had invited KMT Vice Chairman Vincent Siew (
Political observers have construed the string of moves as Chen's dissatisfaction with the Cabinet's performance in dealing with economic problems, as the economy will be the most important issue in next year's presidential election campaign.
A political blunder made by the education ministry also irked the president.
On May 23, Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (
The ministry had said one day earlier that this year's exam would not include the essay section and would consist only of a multiple-choice section in both the Chinese and English sections of the exam. The multiple choice portions of the exam are graded by computer.
The next day, the ministry announced that the essays would be included after all.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift