President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday he would listen to the voice of the people and respond to their criticism, but maintained that the main direction of his government polices remained the correct one.
During a visit to a temple in Keelung City yesterday morning, Ma said that he “grew up by eating Taiwanese rice and drinking Taiwanese water” and that he would work for the interests of Taiwanese.
“I am the president and was elected by the Taiwanese people. Of course, all my platforms put the interest of the Taiwanese people first,” he said. “The most important among them all is to pursue peace in the Taiwan Strait. We don’t want to see war in the Taiwan Strait.”
Commenting on the global financial crisis, Ma said Taiwan had experience in dealing with two oil crises and the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. While many financial institutions encountered difficulties elsewhere in the world, Ma said Taiwan had not seen a run on any of its banks before his government offered assistance.
“This reflects depositors’ confidence in the government,” he said. “Taiwan will prevail if we work together and face the challenges fair and square.”
Ma, however, did not respond to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) invitation for a debate on Taiwan’s sovereignty and his cross-strait policies.
Tsai extended the invitation during a demonstration organized by the DPP and other pro-localization groups in Taipei on Saturday.
The demonstration, organized to oppose inferior Chinese products and protect Taiwan’s sovereignty, criticized Ma and his administration, which protesters said have denigrated national sovereignty and been incompetent in dealing with economic problems.
Responding to accusations by Ma on Friday that the DPP was manipulating the sovereignty issue, Tsai told Central News Agency that Ma was too “opaque” in his handling of cross-strait issues.
“If the people did not actually feel it [the threat], it would not be possible [for the DPP] to manipulate the sovereignty issue,” Tsai said.
In response to Ma’s criticism that she had failed to accomplish the opening of the so-called “three-links” during her tenure as chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council from 2000 to 2004, Tsai said that while in power the DPP had never done anything that could harm Taiwan’s sovereignty.
She said the DPP never accepted the “one China” principle and the so-called “1992 Consensus,” an understanding allegedly reached in 1992 between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait that there is only one China, with each side having different interpretations.
Tsai said the DPP managed to stabilize cross-strait relations during its eight years in power, with the condition that Taiwan’s sovereignty never be compromised.
Also See: EDITORIAL: Listen when the people speak
DOING ENOUGH? The HPA budgets NT$1.3 billion to prevent the health hazards of tobacco, but has no separate budget to fight teen drinking, a doctor said The government should step up alcohol education and prevention efforts, and allocate more of the budget to it, doctors said on Friday, citing the high consumption of alcohol among Taiwanese adolescents. One out of four 12-to-17-year-olds has consumed alcohol, said Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), director of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Department of Clinical Toxicology. The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) budgets NT$1.3 billion (US$43.9 million) annually to prevent the health hazards of tobacco, but it has not allocated a separate budget for preventing teenage drinking or excessive alcohol use, Yen said. “There is no so-called ‘safe drinking level’ for minors,” because any amount consumed
The Fancy Frontier manga and anime expo held in Taipei over the weekend has sparked controversy, after a participant allegedly contravened the Act on Offenses Against Sexual Morality (妨害風化罪) by publicly exposing her private parts during a photo shoot. The two-day event opened at the Expo Dome at the Taipei Expo Park on Saturday, attracting numerous comic and anime creators, cosplayers, photographers and fans. Allegedly, a female cosplayer who was not wearing any underwear lifted up her skirt and revealed her private parts at an outdoor photography area near the venue. Event organizers said yesterday that to prevent indecent exposure, they have since
YOUNGEST PATIENT: Cases of botulism have been only sporadically reported over the past few years, with two in 2015, six in 2016 and none in the past three years The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of infant botulism this year, a four-month-old boy in northern Taiwan, as well as five new cases of Japanese encephalitis confirmed last week. The boy was introduced to homemade solid food in the middle of last month, but began to experience constipation and loss of appetite on June 23, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said, adding that he was taken to the hospital when he developed a fever and shortness of breath on June 25. In the hospital, the boy also experienced a rapid heartbeat, limb
The National Taiwan Museum’s Railway Department Park in Taipei is to open to the public today. The park in Datong District (大同) near the North Gate (北門, Beimen) is one of the museum’s four branches. During the Japanese colonial era, the site housed the railway department of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan’s Bureau of Transportation. After World War II, it served as the headquarters for the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) for several decades. In 2007, it was listed as a national monument under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法). At an opening ceremony yesterday, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung
RSS