Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday invited Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to join an initiative she launched to settle long-time political feuds and create a peaceful environment.
Taiwan has been entrenched in partisan strife between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, Lu said, adding that she hopes to end that situation by having all politicians from across party and race lines attend a ceremony on Sunday, at which they are to sign a peace treaty and ring a bell for peace.
Sunday’s “world peace carnival,” organized by the Peace and Neutrality for Taiwan Alliance, which Lu founded, aims to achieve international and domestic peace by molding Taiwan into a permanently neutral nation — the “Switzerland of the East.”
“Parties must reconcile before the world can achieve peace,” Lu said.
Lu said that she regards the Legislative Yuan as the nation’s highest institution, adding that she put Wang at the top of the invitation list because of his record of putting the public’s interests above all others and his commitment to “transpartisanship.”
Lu also invited Wang to attend a forum in February next year on Asia-Pacific religious freedom, which is to be cohosted by the alliance and US organizations Freedom House and the Heritage Foundation, as Wang is a devout believer and an avid participant in religious activities, she said.
Asked whether Wang would still be welcome should he no longer hold office after the presidential and legislative elections in January next year, Lu said: “Wang is welcome at the forum regardless of whether he still holds office, because his influence and concern for the nation and the public would be the same.”
However, she dodged a reporter’s question regarding whether she would like to see Wang retain his speakership, saying: “It is in the nation’s best interest for Wang to hold any public office.”
Lu also expounded on China’s “red supply chain” — a Chinese plan to cultivate a domestic supply chain for its high-tech manufacturing sector, which is expected to threaten Taiwanese firms — saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) plans to deal with the “Taiwan problem” next year, adding that the public should discuss whether the nation’s industry should be “entirely positioned in China,” or “positioned globally and efficiently.”
While it might be an old topic, it is now loaded with new challenges and implications, she added.
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