Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of overstepping its purview after it last week asked Hau to clarify the question for a referendum he initiated regarding food imports from Japan.
The referendum asks for people’s views on importing food products from five Japanese prefectures that have been banned since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011.
The referendum drive, launched by Hau in December 2016, last month passed the initiation stage and is under review by the CEC, which last week asked Hau to clarify the question.
In its letter to Hau, the CEC said that South Korea, which has imposed a similar ban on potentially radiation-contaminated food products from Japan, is entangled in an international lawsuit with Japan, which accused South Korea of breaching the WHO’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.
Hau should address the possibility that Taiwan breached international regulations and might incur a lawsuit if the referendum is passed, the CEC said.
At a news conference in Taipei, Hau said the CEC’s letter was “beyond comprehension and most reproachable.”
The result of the lawsuit between Japan and South Korea would not have any legal effects on Taiwan’s decisionmaking, he said.
The referendum review committee was abolished after amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) were passed in December last year, meaning that the CEC no longer has the right to review the content of a proposed referendum and can only ask a proposer to correct personal information regarding themselves or to gather the legally required number of signatures to pass the initiation or reconfirmation stages, Hau said.
The CEC has used red tape to obstruct the initiative, Hau said, referring to a provision cited by the CEC that says the proposer of a drive must submit follow-up information on a referendum question within 30 days of notification if it considers the question to be obscure.
KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) accused CEC members of being Japan’s lackeys for using the South Korean lawsuit as the reason for asking Hau to submit follow-up information.
“Why do you give a damn [about the lawsuit]?” Fai said.
If the CEC is worried about Hau’s referendum affecting the nation’s relationship with Japan, it should not have allowed the initiation of Olympic medalist Chi Cheng’s (紀政) referendum asking people whether they think the nation’s athletes should use the name “Taiwan” in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, KMT Legislator Lai shyh-bao (賴士葆) said.
If Chi’s referendum is approved, it would result in the team’s disqualification in today’s international political climate, he said.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS