President Chen Shui-bian (
The TSU, which advocates a separate Taiwan identity, controls 12 seats in the Legislative Yuan. It is usually seen as an ally of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the Legislative Yuan.
During the luncheon, Chen first thanked the TSU executives and lawmakers for their support for his re-election bid. He then asked the TSU legislative caucus to support the Cabinet-proposed NT$610.8 billion (US$18.2 billion) budget bill for procurement of advanced weapons from the US amid mounting Chinese military threats.
The special budget bill is now pending approval by the opposition pan-blue alliance-controlled Legislative Yuan.
TSU legislators quoted Chen as having said during the luncheon that three years have passed since the Bush administration agreed to sell those weapons to Taiwan. As the US will hold a presidential election in November, Chen said if US President George W. Bush fails to win re-election, the US arms sale plans may become uncertain. Against this backdrop, Chen said, he hopes the legislature can pass the budget bill as early as possible so that the Ministry of National Defense can strike deals with the US.
Chen told the lawmakers that there is room for price negotiations for the eight submarines if Taiwan doesn't insist on US technology transfer for Taiwan's state-owned China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC) to take part in construction of the submarines.
According to Chen, the insistence on CSBC to participate in submarine construction will increase costs by NT$80 billion. Chen further said Taiwan took the initiative to purchase the submarines in the face of China's mounting military threat. The US has never pressured Taiwan to buy submarines, Chen was quoted as saying.
Chen also assured the lawmakers that the 15-year arms procurement plan would not cause the government financial difficulties.
Planned trip
A group of lawmakers will visit the US next week to discuss an US$18 billion arms deal amid heated debate over whether the nation can afford, or even needs, advanced US weapons to counter a threat from China.
The Ministry of Defense wants the legislature to grant it a special budget of NT$610 billion in what would be the biggest arms sale to Taiwan in a decade.
The ministry says the weapons are essential to warding off a growing threat of war from China, but opposition parties complain that the price tag is too high.
The delegation will be led by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and will visit the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, the Pentagon and other military facilities in the US from next Thursday to June 28, officials said yesterday.
"It is part of US lobbying efforts to showcase the superiority of their weapons and highlight their importance to Taiwan's security," said Lee Wen-chung (
Lee said he shared opposition concerns about the cost of the weapons and would seek some clarification from the US.
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
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
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