The Cabinet will be reshuffled after today's elections, Premier Frank Hsieh (
"It is just a matter of how many Cabinet members will be replaced by new faces," Hsieh said.
The premier made the remarks after he was approached by reporters yesterday morning while on a two-day trip to Makung city (
Hsieh also admitted to reporters that his relationship with President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen first won the Taipei mayoral election in 1994. At the time, Chen and Hsieh were in direct competition for the DPP nomination. After DPP members decided to nominate Chen, Hsieh then became Chen's chief of staff at his campaign headquarters.
Four years later, Chen campaigned for re-election against current Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), but he lost. However, during the same round of elections, Hsieh won his first mayoral term in Kaohsiung.
"We were competing with each other before [Chen] became the president. Maybe it is difficult for non-DPP people to understand the relationship but that is how it was," Hsieh said.
The premier made the remarks in reference to comments the president made during a TV interview on Thursday night. Chen said that Hsieh and he have always been good partners within the DPP, but their relationship was tense for a while.
"It was no secret," he said.
After Chen became Taipei mayor and Hsieh became Kaohsiung mayor in turn, a rumor circulated that Hsieh and Chen had tried to ask personal favors of each other and ask that government positions be given to their favorite staff members from the Taipei and Kaohsiung city governments. Both Chen and Hsieh said that this is impossible.
"Hsieh was a winner in Kaohsiung at the same time that I lost in Taipei. It was the end of my world but the beginning of his. How could I dare ask for any personal favors from him when I had lost the election?" Chen said during the interview.
"Although we are partners within the DPP, we still have our own dignity and self-respect. How could we ask personal favors of one another?" Hsieh said yesterday.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard