Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was reserved yesterday about a proposed grand debate on the party’s China policy, saying that a debate could end up taking away flexibility in handling cross-strait affairs if it was not well-planned.
Speaking on the sidelines of a book launch held by her foundation, Tsai responded to a media inquiry about DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) proposal to hold such a debate, which was initiated after the party’s recently completed review of its China policy was criticized by many as “unimpressive” and “conservative.”
“The [DPP’s] cross-strait policy has always been a sensitive issue of diverse opinions. Part of it is suitable for a debate and part of it is not. A debate could eventually eliminate the DPP’s room for maneuver unless it is well-planned and well-crafted,” Tsai said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The former presidential candidate said the DPP’s China policy would have to find a balance between its core values and the political reality and “it takes time” to accomplish the feat.
The DPP would have to engage the public in communication as well as with Beijing during the process, she added.
After the DPP’s loss in the presidential election in 2012, several party members called for a debate, which would have been the second “grand debate” on the party’s China policy after the one held in 1998 when Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) was chairman.
Several DPP lawmakers, including Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) and Pasuya Yao (姚文智) supported the proposal.
Tsai spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a book-launch to introduce Thinking Taiwan — a collection of 82 articles published on thinkingtaiwan.com, an online forum.
The forum, established in August 2012 under Tsai’s Thinking Taiwan Foundation, aims to promote a “New Thought movement” among the public following her loss in the 2012 election, Tsai said, adding that it was not a politically motivated move.
Since its establishment, the Web site has published more than 1,600 articles by more than 500 authors and has on average about 200,000 page views per week, according to the foundation.
The articles, on a wide range of topics, have been thought-provoking as the discussion had gone beyond the conventional “election politics” and market economy beliefs, Tsai said.
She added that it has been a pleasant surprise that 80 percent of the Web site’s readership comes from the under-40 age group and almost half of the authors were born after 1980.
“That eased some people’s concern that young people today know how to gather and process information, but do not know how to think,” Tsai said.
Tsai said she was confident about the emerging civil society in Taiwan and said that political parties would have to reconsider their roles and make adjustments accordingly.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS