Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday told lawmakers that he thought that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) made the right decision in "ceasing" the activity of the National Unification Council (NUC) and unification guidelines.
"[The decision] was correct because it returned the right to decide the nation's future back to its 23 million people," Su said while giving a special briefing to the legislature on the NUC issue.
Su had a cautious attitude when questioned, avoiding any discussion of the decision-making process and the communication process with the US.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The premier told Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Chi (
In response to People First Party (PFP) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
KMT Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) asked the premier why the US State Department issued a statement recently in which it asked the Taiwanese government to public state that Chen's Feb. 27 announcement did not abolish the council and guidelines.
In response, the premier asked Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (
The premier's answers prompted opposition lawmakers to cast doubt on whether he really has the power a premier must have in order to decide the government's policies.
"As a premier, you are the head of the nation's executive [branch], and so you shouldn't say that issues relating to diplomacy or cross-strait relations are not your business," Su said.
KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (
But the premier responded that ceasing the activity of the NUC was supported by the people.
"Many surveys show that more than 80 percent of the people support the position that the nation's future can only be decided by its 23 million people," he said.
"In the international community, [many countries] are praising our determination to maintain the cross-strait status quo," the premier said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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