Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) said yesterday that the party would follow Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) directives on Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's (王金平) intention to seek re-election as legislative speaker.
Although the party has yet to begin the nomination process for legislators-at-large, Wu Den-yi said the chairman represented the whole party and as such the KMT would prepare for the nomination as per Wu Poh-hsiung's decision.
"We will do whatever Chairman Wu says," the secretary-general said in Legislative Yuan yesterday.
Wang confirmed late on Friday that Wu Po-hsiung had invited him to run for next legislative speaker for the KMT.
Wang also dismissed questions regarding his loyalty from within the party.
Wang's loyalty has been called into question by some pan-blue camp supporters, mostly as a result of his good relations with the pan-green camp and because he is considered to be a member of the "pro-localization" camp within the KMT.
Wang said on Friday he had set a record by winning 218 votes out of 225 when he ran for re-election as legislative speaker five years ago.
"I should not be criticized for being disloyal [to the KMT] just because I helped push bills proposed by the pan-green camp. Any bill that is beneficial to the country and its people should clear the legislature smoothly," he said, adding that whatever decisions he made were for the KMT's own good.
KMT Deputy Secretary-General Liao Feng-de (
"We had no idea. Legislators-at-large should only serve one term, unless the legislator excelled at the legislature," Liao said at KMT headquarters.
Liao said that members who sought to become legislators-at-large should register with the party's nomination committee. The central committee members will then hold a vote to decide on the final candidates.
Even if Wang successfully won a legislator-at-large seat, the KMT would have to win a majority in the legislature before Wang could be re-elected as legislative speaker, Liao said.
"The most important thing for the KMT at present is campaigning for the elections, not the legislative speaker issue," he said.
Additional reporting by Flora Wang
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods