The Executive Yuan has not set any pre-established positions regarding the transformation of Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i (林萬億) said yesterday ahead of interdepartmental discussions that are to take place after the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Ministry of Culture at the end of last year delivered two proposals to the Executive Yuan on the transformation of the hall, but neither suggests demolishing it, Lin said.
The proposals mainly differ in their approaches to the functions the hall would serve and the supplementary measures that would be adopted after the transformation, he said.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
The ministry and the Transitional Justice Commission are among the government agencies that are to join the discussions, Lin said, adding that there is no timetable for the hall’s transformation.
As no interdepartmental discussions have been held on the issue, the government needs to gather the opinions of various agencies and figure out how to handle the task, he said.
Apart from internal discussions, the government might also invite non-governmental groups, he added.
The transformation might also involve branches of the government other than the Executive Yuan, as it has been suggested that the Legislative Yuan’s offices be moved into the memorial hall, Lin said.
The Executive Yuan would need to communicate with the Legislative Yuan on areas that involve it, he said.
The central government would also need to take the Taipei City Government’s views into consideration regarding arrangements for the site after its transformation, he added.
In response to former vice president Annette Lu’s (呂秀蓮) suggestion on Tuesday that the memorial hall be converted into a space to honor all former presidents, Lin said that the suggestion was also made last year when the ministry was gathering opinions on the topic and that it has been included in the ministry’s proposals.
Officials are leaning toward transforming the hall into an exhibition space, said people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity.
Due to the sensitive nature of the issue, a plan for the transformation is unlikely to be finalized soon, they added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods