Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday that he would continue to run an online campaign in support of convening a national affairs conference.
Former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last week proposed that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) convene a national affairs conference to deal with the financially troubled public pension systems and the economy in general. The DPP’s Central Standing Committee also passed a resolution on Wednesday calling on Ma to hold a national affairs conference.
Ma rejected the idea, instead inviting Su and Tsai to join a “consultative meeting on state policy.”
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Presidential Office spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) told a press conference on Friday evening that Ma hoped to invite Su and Tsai to discuss issues at the Presidential Office, and whatever resulted from the discussion would be submitted to the Cabinet for reference, Fan Chiang said.
The president said he hoped the meeting could take place as soon as possible, Fan Chiang added.
Asked whether Ma will meet Su and Tsai individually or together, Fan Chiang said the details would be left up to Su and Tsai to decide.
However, both Tsai and Su have declined the invitation. Referring to an article published in the latest edition of the UK’s The Economist magazine titled “Ma the bumbler,” Su said the weekly was authoritative and that such a report damaged the image of the president as well as that of Taiwan.
“The public, including the DPP, would like more than anything to help Ma and the country improve at this point in time,” Su said, reiterating the need for a national affairs conference.
Separately yesterday, Tsai was also asked to respond to the article in The Economist, and said that she did not expect a president to be an all-around expert, but that he or she should be a leader able to guide the country in times of turmoil by engaging in dialogue with citizens. The president should guide society in facing and solving problems by engaging in dialogue, she added.
If Ma still thinks the issues facing Taiwan can be solved simply through meetings with opposition leaders, then he has forgotten that Taiwan is a democratic society in which public engagement in state affairs is crucial, Tsai said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift