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.
Three batches of banana sauce imported from the Philippines were intercepted at the border after they were found to contain the banned industrial dye Orange G, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. From today through Sept. 2 next year, all seasoning sauces from the Philippines are to be subject to the FDA’s strictest border inspection, meaning 100 percent testing for illegal dyes before entry is allowed, it said in a statement. Orange G is an industrial coloring agent that is not permitted for food use in Taiwan or internationally, said Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智), head of the FDA’s Northern Center for
The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
About 4.2 million tourist arrivals were recorded in the first half of this year, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The growth continues to be consistent, with the fourth quarter of this year expected to be the peak in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that it plans to promote Taiwan overseas via partnerships and major events. From January to June, 9.14 million international departures were recorded from Taiwan, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, with 3.3 million headed for Japan, 1.52 million for China and 832,962 to South Korea,
REWRITING HISTORY: China has been advocating a ‘correct’ interpretation of the victory over Japan that brings the CCP’s contributions to the forefront, an expert said An elderly Chinese war veteran’s shin still bears the mark of a bullet wound he sustained when fighting the Japanese as a teenager, a year before the end of World War II. Eighty years on, Li Jinshui’s scar remains as testimony to the bravery of Chinese troops in a conflict that killed millions of their people. However, the story behind China’s overthrow of the brutal Japanese occupation is deeply contested. Historians broadly agree that credit for victory lies primarily with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led Republic of China (ROC) Army. Its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a
RSS