A controversial proposal to reform the DPP's independence platform was swept back quietly under the carpet yesterday by the party's Central Executive Committee, which sent it to the policy research department for further review.
"We need more discussion and research before we make any substantive moves," said Yu Shyi-kun, DPP secretary general.
The DPP said it was not dropping the issue, but merely following party procedures. According to the terms of those procedures, such an amendment can only be approved by a vote of representatives at the party's National Party Congress.
The National Party Congress is set to meet in June or July.
On Tuesday, Chen Chao-nan (陳昭南) proposed changes to the DPP's independence guidelines as outlined in the party's charter, suggesting they should be regarded as a "historical document" and that the phrase "establishing the Republic of Taiwan" should be deleted.
Chen's proposal argued that Taiwan's sovereignty has already been achieved because of democratic developments, under which Taiwanese can now freely elect their president and have established a democratic legislature.
Party Chairman Lin I-hsiung (
Over the past few years DPP leaders have attempted to show their platform policy expresses the right to independence, but that such a choice would only be exercised after a referendum.
"It's time to give our voters a new perspective of the DPP," Lin said, "especially since the independence platform has become a weakness for the DPP, forcing our candidates onto the defensive in elections."
Party faction leaders expressed different opinions on Chen's proposal, saying it was not the proper time to start a debate on the subject.
Lin Chuo-shui
While the proposal is seen as a move to help pave the way for a visit by President-elect Chen Shui-bian (
"If it's passed it will not change the DPP's stance and risks further upsetting Beijing," Lin said. "If announced it will be like restating the DPP's stance."
Shen Fu-hsiung (
"Now that the KMT is falling apart and the DPP has won the presidential election, the DPP has no reason to create internal party divisions," Shen said.
During meetings to discuss which DPP member would be chosen to run for president last February, the independence topic came up and was heatedly debated. During the debate Shen and Lin clashed several times over the issue.
During the party's National Congress in March of last year, representatives decided not to amend the platform.
Representatives were opposed to changing the party's founding principles because of the opinion of a few individuals, or for other special reasons.
Core Taiwan independence supporters took their objections to DPP chairman Lin yesterday, telling him that the independence platform was the only weapon President-elect Chen had to fight against Beijing's "one China" policy.
"If we go and change the DPP's independence platform before China has said anything about it, it is like surrendering ourselves and dropping our weapons," said Ng Chiau-tong
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B