Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said they are confident in the party’s ability to push through implementation of policies, both old and new, that would better the nation, following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) re-election.
DPP Chairman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) will serve until May 20 and there is no reason for him to leave the post earlier, given his good leadership, Tsai told reporters at the Presidential Office in Taipei who asked about expectation that she would become the party’s chair again.
DPP legislators were unanimous that Tsai’s second term should focus more on strengthening the economy, defense and foreign diplomacy.
Tsai’s first term has “improved governmental constitution” and the administration can now focus on policy implementation for the New Southbound Policy, the Long-term Healthcare 2.0 and the “five plus two” innovative industries, Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said on Tuesday.
The “five plus two” innovative industries refers to the plans to develop an Asian Silicon Valley, biomedical tech, green energy, industry 4.0 [robotics], defense and aviation, as well as innovative agriculture and a “circular economy.”
Obtaining entry to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the resumption of the US-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement are goals to pursue, Wang said.
Significant government effort are required to persuade the public that Taiwan’s interests are kept in mind when it seeks overcome key obstacles — such as imports from five Japanese prefectures or imports of US pork — and smoothing Taiwan’s way to participating in region-wide economic organizations, he said.
The strengthening of the national defense sector in 2023, the year in which the US has agreed to deliver all of the F-16 jets it has sold Taiwan, and when the indigenous submarine program is scheduled to deliver its first submarine, would help stimulate the economy, Wang said.
These developments would help the public see that the economy and social welfare are improving, he added.
Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said that Tsai’s campaign platforms for her re-election bid should take priority, with the order of the platforms and promises to be discussed by the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the DPP and the DPP caucus.
In second place should be legislation regarding judicial reforms, national security and amendments to the Mining Act (礦業法) left over from the previous legislative session, she added.
Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said the DPP continued legislative majority means that the government must take full responsibility.
A single party cannot satisfy the demands of a pluralistic society and instead of asking what to reform or change next, it is better to focus on the process of change and how to soothe the conflicts over profits, Chung said.
The government’s reforms are not without basis, from autocracy to pluralism to further transition of values, it is a process of managing and adjusting the focus and degree of the reforms, he said.
How to make adjustments and designate resources or administrative positions to balance the old and new is a choice that the DPP has to face and ultimately make, 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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching