Premier Frank Hsieh (
"After I eventually stepped onto the podium [Tuesday], the stock market index immediately shot up," Hsieh said. "That means our politics did worry our people."
Hsieh was blocked by pan-blue camp legislators for a week from delivering his required Cabinet report to the legislature. The premier said that political attacks against him at the legislature were in bounds, but that such attacks should not go so far as to negatively impact the entire nation.
"The premier's being questioned or attacked by opposition party lawmakers is normal in a democratic mechanism. But, it is more important for all politicians to do their best to maintain a stable situation," Hsieh said.
Hsieh made his remarks during the opening speech of the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday morning. He also reiterated his promise that Chinese Petroleum Corp's gas prices will remain steady for at least three months.
The regular press conference after the meeting -- one of the only chances reporters have to get direct responses from the Cabinet on public issues -- was canceled yesterday. Cabinet Secretary-General and Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (
Cho was promoted to Cabinet secretary-general on Sept. 13, but was assigned to continue on in his second position as Cabinet Spokesman as well. At that time, Cho said he would organize a "spokesperson's group" to provide "high quality" services to the media. Cho had hinted on Tuesday that his new "spokesperson's group" would present an "all new style of press conference" yesterday, but the innovative event did not materialize.
Reporters have criticized Cho's plan for a team of spokespeople because they are concerned that not all will be qualified or well-informed enough to speak for the Cabinet. Indeed, Cho himself said yesterday that his team members were not yet ready to hold their own briefing.
Reporters also worry that having too many spokespeople will give the "team" an excuse to postpone responses to certain issues.
Cho told reporters yesterday that in the past couple of weeks he had begun to ask his group members to spend more time with the premier. He said that the group can initially provide professional comment on their specific issues of expertise.
"However, we are also considering hiring a professional spokesman," the Cabinet spokesman said. "This person could be one of them or could be somebody outside the Cabinet team."
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:
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