Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday that the central government’s budget earmarked for promoting cross-strait peace would be increased.
During a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), Wu said it was reasonable to adjust the proportion of the budget set aside for national defense and the promotion of cross-strait peace.
Ting told the premier that the central government’s budget requests for national defense and promotion of cross-strait peace were uneven, as the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) only requested NT$1.1 billion (US$34.2 million) for the next fiscal year, while the national defense budget amounted to NT$288.7 billion.
During the same session, Wu told Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) it was “extremely necessary” to have a series of celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the nation in 2011, particularly after China had just celebrated its 60th National Day last week.
“We should make extra efforts to let the world know that the Republic of China [ROC] still stands and help the 23 million [Taiwanese] understand that the ROC still stands,” Wu said.
However, the premier expressed reservations regarding the need for the president to review the troops on National Day two years from now because such a review remained a controversial issue.
The premier said that in his opinion, the Presidential Office might not consider reviewing the troops either.
During another question-and-answer session, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) accused the Executive Yuan of breaking President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign promise to increase government budgets for social welfare.
The premier defended the budget proposal, saying that the government would be willing to spend the Executive Yuan’s second reserve fund if more money were needed for social welfare.
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