Much has been made of Friday’s cancelation of a top-level meeting to seek a resolution to the student protests that are being staged in the Legislative Yuan over the controversial cross-strait service trade pact.
The meeting was “postponed” after Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) rejected President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) request for a discussion at the Presidential Office over the protests.
The Chinese-language United Daily News called this latest stand-off between Ma and Wang the second round of their political struggle, which began in September last year.
At that time, Ma, as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), made it clear that Wang should no longer remain in his post in light of his alleged role in a case of reported influence-peddling.
Wang, a 73-year-old veteran lawmaker, was the clear winner in the first round, having kept both his party membership and his job as speaker, despite Ma’s efforts to dethrone him.
The Presidential Office said that when Ma called Wang late on Thursday to invite him to the meeting, Wang said: “Sure! When?”
The office then arranged a meeting for 11am the next day and notified Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺).
The purpose of the meeting was to try to find a way to end the student-led occupation of the Legislature, deal with the disputes over the cross-strait service trade agreement and discuss the legislature’s handling of the pact.
Ma’s office said that about half an hour before the scheduled start of the meeting, Wang called Timothy Yang (楊進添), Presidential Office secretary-general, to say that he could not attend and later sent a written explanation.
The Presidential Office said that Ma called Wang twice and KMT Secretary-General Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) called Wang a third time, but Wang could not be swayed.
At about noon, a presidential spokesperson confirmed that the meeting had been postponed and said that the president was supporting the speaker’s position that the legislature would seek to resolve the issues.
Wang later issued a statement listing his reasons for declining the meeting, and disclosed the information about the unsuccessful telephone calls made by Ma and Tseng.
Political commentators said that the underlying message in Wang’s statement was “I call the shots in the Legislative Yuan, but if I’d gone to the Presidential Office, I would have had to listen to you [the president].”
Political experts said Wang has publicly promised to refrain from using his authority to forcefully remove the students.
Therefore, Wang would not welcome being given directives by Ma, nor would he want to be seen to endorse the positions of the president and the premier, who have both been criticized for trying to push the cross-strait agreement through the legislature.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do