Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) lauded the party's latest version of its draft "normal country" resolution yesterday and called it "a success for Taiwan."
Hsieh said that previous discussions over the draft had omitted the opinion and voices of many party members but that many people had participated in Monday's completion of the latest version.
"They made compromises and adjusted [their views]. This is democratic progress and a success for Taiwan," he said when approached for comments in Kaohsiung.
PHOTO: CNA
The latest version of the party's draft "normal country" resolution was completed by a task force and members of the party's Central Executive Committee on Monday afternoon.
The party intends to pass the draft at tomorrow's executive committee meeting.
Monday's discussion was open to members of the committee, some of whom are close to Hsieh.
Hsieh and DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun had disagreed on the content and wording of an earlier draft made public on Aug 1.
Unlike the Aug. 1 draft, which highlighted the need for the nation to change its title to "Taiwan," the latest version only states the nation should correct its national title and write a new constitution "as soon as possible," without specifying which name the country should adopt.
The latest draft emphasizes the need for Taiwan to "hold a referendum at a time best suited to highlight Taiwan's independent sovereignty," but does not describe what questions should be asked in the referendum.
The latest version also deleted content saying that the nation's new constitution should define its territory as "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu."
Some media speculated yesterday that the latest draft represented a victory for Hsieh and a defeat for Yu, but Hsieh dismissed the discussion, saying that the most important thing was for the people to fully support the government's UN bid.
DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (
Commenting on the latest version of the document, the Northern Taiwan Society slammed the DPP for having betrayed its ideals.
The latest version shows that the DPP will echo its presidential candidate and will stop at nothing in order to maintain its grip on power, Yosoh Kure (
He condemned the draft for betraying the aspirations of Taiwanese, saying it is unacceptable for the discourse to remain firmly rooted within the "Republic of China system."
Kure questioned why, since Taiwan is already an independent and sovereign state, it was necessary to stress that a referendum would be held at an appropriate time to highlight that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign state.
Northern Taiwan Society vice chairwoman Michelle Wang (
Wang added that it was disappointing to see the DPP deliberately blurring the lines.
At a separate event, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative whip Kuo Su-chun (
The DPP should well have known that many things included in the resolution are "unworkable and may provoke ethnic conflict," but it still proposed the resolution for the sake of electoral concerns, Kuo said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and staff writer
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