Although the newly appointed Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) will not officially take office until next Monday, he wasted no time visiting party bigwigs yesterday.
Chang paid a visit to outgoing Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Chang told reporters after meeting Yu at DPP headquarters that he got some useful tips from Yu regarding how to work with the party and legislative caucus.
Regarding the Cabinet reshuffle, Chang said that he would put the right people in the right positions and would steer clear of factional interests.
Chang went on to dismiss speculation that Yu and Su had recommended their preferences for Cabinet appointments.
Meanwhile, the DPP's presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh said that he had come to offer his congratulations to Chang on his new position and said they did not talk about the Cabinet line-up.
Hsieh also shrugged off speculation that Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) would assume the position of Executive Yuan secretary-general.
Before visiting Chang, Hsieh also paid Vice President Annette Lu (
Hsieh told reporters that he visited Lu because he thought she had been very creative in her recent remarks and that he wanted to consult her on foreign affairs.
Meanwhile, several political bigwigs were spotted entering the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon by the media.
They included former vice premier Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆), Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) and Vice Minister of National Defense Ko Cheng-heng (柯承亨).
The donation of offshore patrol vessel Kinmen to the Philippines includes provisions that protect Taiwanese fishers and facilitate security cooperation across the First Island Chain, officials said yesterday. The comment was made during the Cabinet’s comprehensive administrative report at the legislature after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Yu-chen (許宇甄) expressed concerns about the decision to give a ship to a country whose coast guard had in 2013 fired on a Taiwanese trawler and killed its captain without provocation. The Cabinet should lay out the safeguards that have been established to prevent the Philippine government from using the Kinmen to harass, expel
GROWING TIES: The CGA is planning a goodwill mission to the Philippines, in what would be the first time since 1975 a Taiwanese paramilitary vessel has visited the country The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) plans to significantly expand its participation in international security cooperative frameworks and its operational capabilities, a budget proposal for next year showed. The budget indicates a transformation of the CGA from a maritime law enforcement arm into a national defense and intelligence gathering entity capable of tackling larger regional security matters. The proposal showed that personnel from the coast guard’s Intelligence Division and Special Action Support Center are to participate in high-level national security talks with the US. As the CGA has dealt with China’s rising “gray zone” threats around Taiwan, it has become a valuable asset to
A patrol vessel donated by the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) to the Philippines was commissioned into the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Friday, a Philippine non-governmental organization said. The CGA on Sept. 16 confirmed media reports that Taiwan had donated a retired 500-tonne patrol vessel to the Philippines. The Manila-based We Protect Our Seas (WPS) foundation, which served as an intermediary in the transfer, said that the vessel was formerly the CGA’s 500-tonne petrol vessel Kinmen (CG123). The WPS, in a statement issued on Friday, said the vessel, renamed as the BRP Sarangani, had been commissioned into the PCG the
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: Beijing sent two China Coast Guard vessels to escort a ‘supposedly private research ship,’ a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman said The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday confirmed that it had recently deployed three patrol vessels to waters in Taiwan’s overlapping exclusive economic zone with the Philippines to monitor three Chinese vessels. CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said the agency regularly monitors Chinese vessels around Taiwan, and that the deployment south of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, was carried out in accordance with standard procedures. He added that the waters fall within the overlapping exclusive economic zones of Taiwan and the Philippines, which extend 200 nautical miles (370km) from their coastlines. Hsieh made the comments when asked about a
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