Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma suggested that President Chen Shui-bian (
"To re-engineer the Constitution is not in conflict with the goals of pursuing economic development and political stability," Wang said yesterday while meeting a private group advocating constitutional reform. The group was led by Houng Yu-houng (洪裕宏), the convener of the Constitution Reform Alliance, which is composed of about 50 private organizations.
Wang told his visitors that he had suggested that the president establish a task force to research what kind of governmental system -- a presidential system, parliamentary system or dual executive system -- would best suit Taiwan.
"The governmental system should be either a pure presidential system or a pure parliamentary system. In addition, we also argued that a human rights protection clause should be added into the Constitution," Houng said.
Wang said he supported that move, noting that the clause would be helpful in promoting Taiwan's international image.
Despite being in favor of re-engineering the constitution, Wang didn't say whether he agrees with creating an entirely "new" constitution.
"To call it re-engineering the Constitution or creating a new constitution depends on what part of the Constitution we want to change," Wang said.
Chen said last week during an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun daily that "it is not entirely impossible to push for a new constitution and ratify it through a referendum next year, as long as the social conditions in Taiwan are ripe and the public and legislature have all agreed on the goal."
Responding to Chen, Ma said that abiding by the current Constitution is much more important than the project of creating a new constitution.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift