Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday accused former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) of vacillating on his position on nuclear energy for electoral gains.
Su made the remark when asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) about Chu’s remark that he would activate the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s in Gongliao District (貢寮).
In an interview published yesterday by the Chinese-language United Daily News, Chu — who in December last year said that he would seek the Chinese National Party’s (KMT) nomination for president next year — said that if elected, he would activate the nuclear power plant in the event of an energy shortage, adding that he is “capable of dealing with nuclear waste.”
“When Chu was campaigning for New Taipei City mayor, he said that he was against [the nuclear power plant]. Now that he wants to run for president, he says he can solve” the problem of nuclear waste, Su said.
“He keeps changing” his policy views, Su said.
Su said that his opposition to nuclear energy has not wavered since he ran for Pingtung County councilor about 30 years ago.
Local business owners at the time asked him not to oppose construction of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), saying that it would boost their profits, he added.
Su said that in 2014, when he was DPP chairman, had a debate with then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at the Presidential Office over whether to shutter the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Ma insisted that the plant could not be closed, but he budged the next day in the face of mounting pressure from the public, Su said.
Activating the power plant would pose challenges, Su said, urging Chu to name the nuclear waste repository site he alluded to.
Even if Chu names a site, such an assertion would “bear no substance,” Su said.
Asked by KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) about whether Wu, who resigned as vice president on May 20, 2016, would be allowed to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after a three-year restriction on a former president of vice president traveling to China is lifted, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said that party-to-party exchanges would be allowed as long as they do not undermine the nation’s sovereignty.
Asked whether Wu could attend the Cross-strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chen Ming-tong said yes.
However, singing the Chinese national anthem or saluting the CCP’s emblem are prohibited by the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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