Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) will not meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) until Tsai stops her political persecution of the KMT, party spokeswoman Chung Pei-chun (鍾沛君) said on Wednesday.
Chung said Wu made the statement during a weekly meeting of the party’s Central Standing Committee in response to Tsai’s remark last month that she would like to meet with the leaders of the main political parties.
She quoted Wu as saying that his meeting with Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Friday last week drew a mixed reaction from KMT supporters.
During the meeting, Wu praised the Ministry of Labor’s draft amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), as “showing the resolve to create a win-win situation for employers and employees.”
He also lauded Lai for being “very conscientious.”
The amendment, which was approved by the Cabinet yesterday, still needs to be reviewed and passed by the legislature.
However, Wu apparently changed his tone during Wednesday’s committee meeting, saying the proposed amendment has “upset” workers and that he hopes the proposed changes would be carried out in a way that serves the mutual interests of employers and employees.
“The proposed amendment is a little different from the version I suggested that Lai adopt last week. Lai did not accept my suggestions,” Wu was quoted as saying.
Some committee members told Wu that it was alright for him to meet with Lai, but it would be different if he were to meet with the president.
Wu promised the committee members that he would not meet with Tsai “until she stops her political persecution,” Chung said.
“The DPP is manipulating politics while plundering the KMT’s assets,” Wu was quoted as saying.
However, Presidential Office spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said that Wu had responded favorably to Tsai’s suggestion that she hold a meeting with political leaders.
“It is a pity that no progress has been made on this matter,” Lin said.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has been in contact with leaders of other parties over the past month, who have responded positively to Tsai’s idea, Lin said.
“We will continue to facilitate dialogue between the governing and opposition parties as long as it is what the people want and is beneficial for the nation,” he said.
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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