President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has again turned down a proposal by former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for a national affairs conference, saying that such a meeting would be pointless if it was held with preconditions.
“How can such a meeting ever take place if you are required to first accept [Tsai’s prerequisites] as a gesture of good faith? I think there is no point in holding the conference,” Ma said on Wednesday in response to questions from Taiwanese reporters covering his visit to Paraguay.
Tsai has urged Ma to immediately halt the construction of the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) as a goodwill gesture.
Ma said the opposition parties should first sort out important issues before even considering a national affairs conference, including whether the legislature would be involved in a conference held outside the system and, if so, what its role would be.
“They should also figure out which issues cannot be discussed in such a meeting and whether issues on which we reach a consensus during the conference still need to be referred to the legislature for deliberations afterwards,” Ma said.
Matters such as whether legislators should be mandated to attend the meeting, whether members of the public should be invited and whether every participant had voting rights also needed to be clarified, Ma added.
“The opposition parties have set discontinuation of the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant as a prerequisite for the meeting before they even began discussing the issues to be deliberated upon. That is not the right attitude for discussing [state-level] issues,” the president said.
Ma said he is always open to discussion of public issues, but he opposes prerequisites for such a meeting, because doing so would only spark a war of words and waste everyone’s time.
“Besides, in a mature democracy, key issues should be dealt with in the legislature and not even the president has a final say on them,” Ma said.
DPP spokesman Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said it was Ma who had imposed prerequisites for meeting leaders of opposition parties.
“On one hand, Ma calls for meetings between leaders of the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] and opposition parties, but on the other hand, he has never ceased to support continued construction of the plant,” Lin said.
In a press release issued yesterday, Tsai’s office expressed regret and disappointment over what it said were Ma’s repeated attempts to shirk his responsibility as president and to find excuses to avoid a national affairs conference.
“Public discontent will only rise as the nation continues to sink. President Ma should be prepared and take full responsibility for this,” Tsai said in the press release.
Taiwan must first strengthen its own national defense to deter a potential invasion by China as cross-strait tensions continue to rise, multiple European lawmakers said on Friday. In a media interview in Taipei marking the conclusion of an eight-member European parliamentary delegation’s six-day visit to Taiwan, the lawmakers urged Taipei to remain vigilant and increase defense spending. “All those who claim they want to protect you actually want to conquer you,” Ukrainian lawmaker Serhii Soboliev said when asked what lessons Taiwan could draw from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Soboliev described the Kremlin as a “new fascist Nazi regime” that justified
The US House of Representatives yesterday passed the PROTECT Taiwan Act, which stipulates that Washington would exclude China from participating in major global financial organizations if its actions directly threaten Taiwan’s security. The bill, proposed by Republican US Representative Frank Lucas, passed with 395 votes in favor and two against. It stipulates that if China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, the US would, “to the maximum extent practicable,” exclude China from international financial institutions, including the G20, the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board. The bill makes it clear that China
‘T-DOME’: IBCS would increase Taiwan’s defense capabilities, enabling air defense units to use data from any sensor system and cut reaction time, a defense official said A defense official yesterday said that a purported new arms sale the US is assembling for Taiwan likely includes Integrated Battle Command Systems (IBCS). The anonymous official’s comments came hours after the Financial Times (FT) reported that Washington is preparing a US$20 billion arms sale encompassing “Patriot missiles and other weapons,” citing eight sources. The Taiwanese official said the IBCS is an advanced command and control system that would play a key role in President William Lai’s (賴清德) flagship defense program, the “T-Dome,” an integrated air defense network to counter ballistic missiles and other threats. The IBCS would increase Taiwan’s
NOMINAL NEWLYWEDS: A man’s family and his wife — his long-term caregiver — are engaged in a legal dogfight over the propriety and validity of the recent union A centenarian’s marriage to his caregiver unbeknownst to his children has prompted legal action, as the caregiver accuses the man’s children of violating her personal liberty and damaging her reputation, while the children have sought a legal option to have the marriage annulled. According to sources, the 102-year-old man surnamed Wang (王) lives in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) and previously worked as a land registration agent. Wang reportedly owns multiple properties and parcels of land worth several hundred million New Taiwan dollars and has ten children. His caregiver, a 69-year-old surnamed Lai (賴), has been caring for him since about 1999,
RSS