President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday praised outgoing Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) for his contributions in reviving the nation’s economy, and insisted that he has unwillingly approved Chen’s resignation amid concerns about his health.
Ma read out an acrostic poem to thank Chen for leading the Cabinet in overcoming many challenges in boosting the economy, and leaving a legacy in terms of his contribution in leading government reform, with the embedded message reading “Sean Chen is great”.
“I am grateful for Premier Chen’s dedication in overcoming difficulties and improving the nation’s economy amid the global economic crisis ... I was struggling when approving his resignation, but his health condition requires him to rest,” Ma said at a farewell party held at the Presidential Office, attended by Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Chen’s successor, Vice Premier Jiang Yi-hua (江宜樺).
Photo: CNA
The event was the first farewell party the Presidential Office has held for an outgoing premier. It also provided Ma with a public venue to discuss the latest Cabinet reshuffle, which he was scheduled to formally announce this week, but was leaked to the press on Thursday last week.
Chen cited remarks from former US president Theodore Roosevelt and said both Ma and Jiang are “the men in the arena” who lead fights and devote their efforts to the country, and he expected them to continue working for the country while ignoring criticism.
“As Roosevelt said a 100 years ago: ‘It is not the critic who counts … The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.’ President Ma and Mr Jiang should focus on the efforts to make the nation better,” Chen said.
Jiang, a former minister of the interior, is reportedly Ma’s preferred successor and a rising political star in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), as shown by Ma hand-picking him to serve as the premier.
Ma yesterday listed Jiang’s achievements in leading task forces to implement government policies to stabilize prices and pension reform plans, and said he expected the new Cabinet to revive the nation’s economy while continuing government reforms.
As to the lineup of the new Cabinet, Ma said Jiang has done a good job in finding people with great leadership abilities and capabilities in various fields, and instructed him to also take Cabinet members’ integrity into consideration in finalizing the Cabinet.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods