Weekly High-Level Policy Coordination Meetings that have convened since October last year are to be put on hold, with sources saying the provisional measure has accomplished its purpose.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) launched the initiative, in which Presidential Office, Executive Yuan, local government, Democratic Progressive Party caucus and high-ranking party officials and representatives meet every Monday to discuss, facilitate and implement policies.
The last meeting was convened on Feb. 6.
The governments policy communication channels are working smoothly, a source said, adding that regular meetings would no longer be held.
The government was not ending the meetings altogether, but would convene in a flexible manner, the source added.
“On occasion we will invite relevant people to meet and discuss particular subjects, but we will not hold meetings at fixed times,” the source said.
At the start of Tsai’s term in office there was discord between the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan and a subsequent drop in the president’s approval ratings, the source said, adding that Tsai devised the meetings as a way of creating harmony about policy between the divisions of government.
The first meeting resulted in the unanimous decision to push forward with the controversial “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” labor provision. Subsequent meetings focused on issues such as the reconstruction of old buildings, changes to the Electricity Act (電業法), the Corporation Act (財團法人法) and public servants’ pension funds, planning the “Forward-looking Infrastructure Construction Project” and nominations for the 11 undecided members of the Control Yuan.
Tsai also used the meeting to discuss pressing issues as they emerged, such as the disturbance during the public hearing for lifting a ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures, that saw the hearing end without a resolution.
Some have called into question the constitutional nature of the meetings, with Judicial Yuan President Hsu Zhong-li (許宗力) saying: “Whether the meetings will be held needs more thought.”
Activist group Taiwan Democracy Watch made a request for access to meeting attendance records and minutes under Access to Government Information Act (政府資訊公開法).
Policy-related communication channels used by the Tsai administration on a weekly basis include policy coordination reports by the Executive Yuan on Mondays, meetings between Tsai and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) to exchange ideas on Wednesdays, DPP meetings — in which Tsai appears in her capacity as DPP chairperson — on Wednesdays, “boxed lunch” meetings between Lin and legislators on Thursdays, and DPP caucus meetings on Fridays.
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:
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