Two senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members will lose membership privileges for three years because they attended a cross-strait forum in China organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the DPP said yesterday.
DPP Central Disciplinary Committee chairman Derek Chen (陳金德) said former DPP legislator Hsu Jung-shu (?Q) and former Council of Agriculture minister Fan Chen-tsung (范振宗) were warned of the consequences if they chose to attend last month’s forum but still chose to go.
“However, considering the immensity of their past contributions to the party and their contrite attitude, we have decided not to strip them of their membership, but rather suspend their membership privileges for three years, which is the maximum period of suspension,” Chen told a press conference.
The penalty is harsh but fair, Chen said.
Fan and Hsu were being punished for breaking party rules, not for holding ideals that are different from the party’s, Chen said.
In making their case to the committee, Fan and Hsu apologized for any trouble they had caused and said they wanted to stay in the party, Chen said.
A few committee members wanted the pair to apologize to the public, but Chen said it was up to Hsu and Fan to decide.
The party should formulate a clear and uniform policy on its officials visiting China, Chen said.
Hsu said she would take the committee’s decision to arbitration and that she had nothing to apologize for because her actions were motivated by her love for Taiwan.
Prior to going into the meeting, Hsu and Fan told reporters they were confident they wouldn’t lose their party membership because “these are old friends.”
The forum they attended was not the KMT-CCP forum that the party had prohibited its members from attending, but rather a “Cross-Strait Trade and Cultural Forum.”
The name of the forum was changed after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) suggested earlier this month that it be called “cross-strait” to encourage the participation of non-KMT members.
In a joint statement, Hsu and Fan said Taiwan needed to face the fact China was an emerging economic powerhouse and that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should establish positive interactions to co-exist peacefully.
“The final words we have for the party is that the Taiwanese remain the core of Taiwan’s political power and the Taiwanese will be the victims of erroneous policies,” they said.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
RSS