People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday said the door for his party's merger with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been shut.
Adding to opposition to the move, PFP Vice Chairman Chang Chao-hsiung (
Soong and Chang made the remarks in Tainan on a trip to greet supporters and thank them for their support of the party in Saturday's legislative elections.
The PFP lost 12 seats from the 46 it obtained in 2001 legislative elections.
When asked whether the PFP would merge with the KMT as the two parties had pledged before the election, Soong was reluctant to talk about it, only saying, "the KMT has shut the door."
Chang said the KMT had campaigned for independent candidates such as Cheng Li-wen (
When Soong went to Hsinchu to solicit support from residents in military areas, he was blocked from entering those areas controlled by the KMT's Huang Fu-hsing (
"That proves the KMT is not sincere about the merger plan," Chang said.
"Many PFP candidates lost the election by a thin margin due to a lack of cross-party cooperation. As such, the two parties can only cooperate under a general direction with no possibility of a merger," Chang said.
Also on a trip to Kaohsiung to thank voters for their support, Soong yesterday complained about the "cold-blooded" treatment he had received from the KMT during the legislative election campaign.
"I don't intend to return to the KMT as a No. 2. I simply want to be myself and stick to my ideals," Soong told supporters in Kaohsiung.
Soong said the PFP will continue to cooperate with the KMT in defending the existence of the Republic of China, maintaining cross-strait peace, asserting ethnic harmony and prevent the nation from moves toward independence and unification.
As for issues that concerns party cooperation, the PFP will not blindly follow the KMT's pace, but will take into consideration whether the issues will benefits for the people, he said. Soong further said that the PFP will push for reform to revitalize the party.
"I understand very well that the PFP can depend on no one but itself," he said.
Soong said his decision to team up with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
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