The pan-blue and pan-green camps yesterday locked horns over an international fishing group's sanctions on the nation's fisherman, with the pan-blues demanding Premier Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) resignation over the setback.
On Sunday, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) passed a Japanese proposal to cut Taiwan's total allowable catch of bigeye tuna for next year by 70 percent, in an attempt to stem overfishing in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
The resolution also said that the commission will review Taiwan's practice again in November next year to see whether there has been improvement in the management of Taiwan's tuna fishing fleets.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In the wake of that move, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) condemned what she called the government's ineptitude, and said Hsieh should step down to shoulder responsibility.
"The decision not only sabotages fishermen's livelihoods but also humiliates the entire nation," she said.
After Hsieh was quoted by a local Chinese-language newspaper yesterday as saying that the matter is "not as serious as it seems," Pan said that Hsieh is not fit for his job, and should immediately resign for deliberately playing down the severity of the matter and shirking his responsibilities.
Pan also criticized Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Pi-ling (
Shieh yesterday told the Taipei Times that it is not appropriate to talk about resignations now, because the most important thing is to map out a plan to more effectively manage the nation's fishing business.
"I will not avoid any bit of responsibility," he said.
Shieh Dah-wen also apologized for seeing the fishing industry affected by the ICCAT resolution.
While first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) is in Japan on a private visit, Pan also called on Wu to lodge a protest to the Japanese government or to immediately return home to show the nation's displeasure with the Japanese measure.
Jumping to the government's defense, DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) called on opposition parties to team up with the nation's fishing authorities to jointly tackle the problem.
DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) asked fishermen to avoid looking for legal loopholes and to stop sabotaging the nation's reputation.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
Chang also demanded that the Presidential Office dismiss senior adviser to the president Koo Kwang-ming (
Chang also asked national policy adviser Alice King (金美齡), a vocal pro-independence activist based in Japan, to protest against the Japanese government on its home turf.
The Executive Yuan yesterday promised to "reasonably compensate" fishermen for their losses, but called on fishermen to abide by international fishing rules in a bid to ensure sustainable develoment of both the national and global fishing industry.
Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told a press conference last night that government agencies are studying the possibility of implementing certain control measures, such as assigning observers to fishing boats.
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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