President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) visited Kaohsiung yesterday for their first inspection tour together since assuming office on May 20.
The inspection of a flood-prevention project in Niaosong Township (鳥松) was interpreted as a gesture of Ma’s support for Liu following a recent flurry of criticism aimed at the Cabinet’s performance.
Since taking office, Liu and his Cabinet have been challenged by the pan-green camp and some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members for performing poorly and failing to react promptly to many issues.
PHOTO: CNA
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) said last week that Ma should reshuffle his Cabinet.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said yesterday that the Presidential Office always informed the Executive Yuan of the president’s daily schedule and welcomed the premier to join presidential activities, while denying that Ma was playing a more active role in promoting government policies.
“President Ma will continue to respect the constitutional system. He has visited other parts of the country to understand the people. Making policies and promoting them is the Cabinet’s duty,” Wang said.
Ma expressed his full support to the Cabinet during a meeting with the media on Saturday and said he had no immediate plans to reshuffle the Cabinet.
The president lauded Liu and his Cabinet for pushing government policies in the right direction and taking the necessary measures calmly and with steadfastness, adding that while their duties differed, he and Liu had enjoyed close cooperation.
During the inspection tour, Ma expressed concerns about the flood-prevention construction project along the Fengshan River and asked that the local government complete the work in time to prevent flooding during the typhoon season.
Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢), the director-general of the Water Resources Agency, said the agency would complete all the projects in flooding areas in the south — including Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties — as soon as possible.
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:
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