Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) yesterday said that there is no doubt Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) executives would exert themselves to support the party’s presidential election campaign, in response to a news report that Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) had snubbed a KMT request for campaign support.
The Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that, in a meeting of the KMT’s upper echelon at the Presidential Office, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and KMT Secretary-General Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) allegedly said the executive system has not been enthusiastic about supporting the party’s campaign activities.
A person with knowledge of the meeting was quoted as saying that Mao has been distancing himself from the election, saying that participation in such activities is the business of the party system, not the executive system.
KMT lawmakers were said to have complained about the “absence of the Executive Yuan in the election [campaign]” and requested the Cabinet transform into a “combat Cabinet” that can contribute to the campaign.
Sun said that Cabinet members have a responsibility to support their party’s campaign.
“Many people are concerned about the executive team’s role in the election campaign,” Sun said.
“The administrative system and the bureaucracy will absolutely respect the principle of bureaucratic neutrality,” he added.
“As for the political appointees, they would undoubtedly exert themselves in their efforts to support the KMT’s election campaign as the ruling party’s administrative team,” he said.
He added that there is no need to discuss whether Cabinet members would have a role in the campaign.
“As long as the Cabinet members are the ruling party’s members, it is an obligation to do so,” Sun said.
He added that it is “not possible for the premier to have said [that it is the business of the party system to work on the campaign.]”
When asked whether the Cabinet would launch policies to galvanize the economy, Sun said all policies would address domestic needs.
“It would be the people as a whole, regardless of political stance, who would benefit from these policies,” he said.
“Taking good care of [governance] is the best way to support the campaign,” he added.
Chu later yesterday denied that he had complained in a meeting about Mao’s attitude, saying that what was proposed was “merely [a plan] to put forward policies that could enhance public well-being and refrain from tabling controversial policies or those that could hurt the party.”
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS