Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) yesterday said that Premier Su Tseng-chang (
"This has never crossed his mind," Cheng said on be half of Su yesterday morning. "This is a false news report."
The spokesman's remarks were in reference to a story in yesterday's Chinese-language Apple Daily, which reported that there was a "good chance" Su would quit his job soon after the Lunar New Year and begin to launch his campaign activities for the 2008 presidential election. The paper cited an unnamed Su staff member.
The premier is widely seen as a leading contender for the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) nomination, but has not yet declared his intention to run.
The story reported that Su planned to quit before the Lunar New Year so he would be able to gear up for the presidential election.
However, President Chen Shui-bian (
The Apple Daily reported that the president had repeatedly asked Su to remain in office even though he may participate in the presidential election.
However, members of Su's staff said that remaining in the position of premier and running for the presidential election at the same time may not be a good thing for Su because once Su is officially nominated, he may become a target to be challenged at the legislature.
If that were the case, the premier would not have sufficient opportunities or time to carry out as many campaign events as possible.
"I must say this is not an accurate newspaper story," Cheng said. "Reporters didn't confirm the information that they wrote in their stories with any of us. I have no idea where they got the information, either."
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