Former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), who resigned following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) landslide defeat in last year’s nine-in-one elections, yesterday left for the US to serve a year as a visiting academic at Harvard and Stanford universities.
Jiang left a day after being named as one of the Presidential Office’s senior advisers.
The Presidential Office announced a new list of senior advisers and national policy advisers, who are to remain in their positions until May 19 next year.
Photo: Chu Pei-de, Taipei Times
It is likely to be the last adviser appointment before President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) second term ends.
The list includes former Presidential Office secretary-general Timothy Yang (楊進添) and former Examination Yuan president John Kuan (關中) as senior advisers — the other 24 positions were chosen by reappointment.
Jiang was a political science professor at National Taiwan University before he joined the Ma administration in 2000, taking the positions of minister of the research, development and evaluation commission, minister of the interior, vice premier and premier.
Jiang earned his doctorate at Yale University, specializing in political philosophy and Hannah Arendt’s political theory.
He cited Arendt twice in a speech given before leaving the Cabinet, referring to her idea of the public sphere and her words saying that a life spent entirely in the public realm would become shallow.
The former premier left the Cabinet amid controversies, including his decision to forcefully evict Sunflower movement protesters from the front square of the Executive Yuan on March 24 last year, a move that reportedly left scores of protesters injured.
Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), one of the leading protesters in the Sunflower movement, condemned the appointment.
“Though being Ma’s adviser is not something that could be seen as an honor, the nation’s official titles, however, should not be used as personal favors,” Huang said on Facebook on Friday after the announcement.
“Jiang, who caused so many injuries and has not yet offered any apology or been held accountable, is in no position [to receive the title],” he said.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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