Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟) has demanded that he be paired with a higher-ranking counterpart within the party with whom he would hold discussions on decisions regarding policy and legislation.
Liao said he was seated next to the KMT Central Policy Committee deputy director at a recent party meeting, adding that he has told KMT Secretary-General Mo Tien-hu (莫天虎) that his counterpart for discussing the party’s direction on policy and legislation should have a higher rank than the Central Policy Committee director, otherwise it would signify that the party is downplaying the significance of the whip’s position within the party.
Liao’s election on July 7 as the KMT’s legislative caucus whip was the result of a power play within the party, in which legislators hoped to highlight the caucus’ importance, asking to directly elect the Central Policy Committee director.
KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) denied the request, reportedly saying: “The caucus whip is of course the director of the Central Policy Committee,” forcing the legislators to settle for only electing the whip, while the whip’s powers and those of the Central Policy Committee director were disassociated.
Under the KMT’s Central Standing Committee structure, the Central Policy Committee director’s status is second only to that of the party secretary-general, automatically making the director the caucus whip.
Seeking to further disassociate the whip and the Central Policy Committee director, KMT lawmakers said the Legislative Yuan should be considered the primary battlefield, and as the caucus whip represents the public will behind the party, the whip should be afforded a status within the party equal to their significance.
Mo said the party understands Liao’s concerns and it was the party’s original intention to meet with Liao and discuss how the party and the caucus would work together.
The party headquarters is considering the establishment of a group, including the deputy party chairwoman, the secretary-general and the Central Policy Committee director, to directly discuss matters with the caucus whip, Mo said.
However, Mo said that despite agreement to set up a channel of discussion being between the party’s higher-ups and the caucus whip, the caucus should not entertain thoughts of cutting out the party altogether.
“Without the KMT, there would be no KMT legislative caucus,” Mo said. Liao expressed his agreement with Mo’s opinion.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching