The Presidential Office yesterday dismissed an allegation that President Chen Shui-bian (
"No such thing [happened]," Presidential Office Spokesman David Lee (李南陽) said. "The party is in charge of the organization of the event. It is too early to tell who will attend and what will happen as the details are still being worked out."
Lee was responding to an article published in yesterday's Chinese-language China Times.
Although the march, which has been in the works for a while, had never been canceled, the report alleged that Chen had specifically called for it to go ahead.
The DPP headquarters yesterday announced details of Saturday's event, dubbed "Taiwan Stand Up," to be held in Kaohsiung. The event, organized to beef up public support for the party's candidates in the year-end Kaohsiung and Taipei mayoral elections, will begin with a march at 4pm.
Although Chen, Vice President Annette Lu (
DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the party hoped to mobilize 300,000 people to attend the event, but added that it was not organized to counter the anti-Chen demonstrations initiated by former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德).
Lin said that Chen would make a speech titled "Taiwan's New Constitution" and Lu would call for an end to political confrontation and urge dialogue.
Su would talk about the government's "Big Warmth, Big Investment" project and Yu would focus on the fight against corruption and the return of the Chinese National Party's (KMT) stolen assets.
The party yesterday also aired a video promoting Saturday's event.
The video features the color red -- used prominently by Shih's campaign -- to emphasize the corruption inherent in the KMT's illegal accumulation of state assets.
As the DPP is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its founding today, Lin said that the party planned to publicize the Chen administration's achievements over the past six years in a bid to boost supporters' confidence in the party and reshape its image.
Meanwhile, the DPP's Central Executive Committee yesterday amended its resolution on ethnicity in a bid to allay ethnic tension stirred up by the demonstrations.
The change was proposed by former DPP legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), who has expressed discontent over recent remarks made by DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun.
At a rally organized by the Taiwan Society on Sept. 16, Yu said the anti-Chen campaign was a tool used by "Chinese people to bully Taiwanese people."
The Chinese-language China Times, however, reported that Yu had described supporters of the anti-Chen campaign as "Chinese pigs." Yu has filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.
Committee members yesterday acknowledged Yu's effort to defend Chen and his administration and reached a consensus to condemn the China Times and support Yu's decision to file a suit.
The committee, however, urged political leaders to avoid engaging in provocative dialogue.
A consensus was also reached on a resolution banning party members from attending events organized to counter the anti-Chen demonstrations.
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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