The government will abide by its commitment to constitutional reform, but would steer clear of sensitive issues, Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (
He added that Taiwan and the US were communicating well and had a mutual understanding in terms of constitutional reforms.
Huang, who returned from a trip to the US on Sunday, made the remarks yesterday in the Legislative Yuan.
Huang said that he had not met any US officials during his stay in California, adding that the purpose of his trip had been to meet some old friends and deliver a speech at Stanford University.
"I met my friend William Perry, a former US deputy secretary of defense, other retired officials and some important academics," Huang said. "But I did not meet any incumbent officials and I did not discuss the arms sale bills and the constitutional reforms with US officials."
In a speech at former presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming's (辜寬敏) 80th birthday celebration on Oct. 15, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed establishing a "Second Republic," and created a political uproar with his suggestion of changing the territory stipulated in the Constitution.
When asked about the US' attitude towards Chen's ideas on constitutional reform, Huang said that Taiwan has enjoyed very smooth channels of communication with the US on these issues since Chen won re-election in 2004.
"The Taiwanese government abides by its promises on constitutional reform, and the US has a very good understanding of this," Huang said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching