President Chen Shui-bian (
In an interview with the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, Chen said he had asked Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
"I wonder if it is possible to hold negotiations convened by the president to deal with the combination of the referendums and the presidential election, which is a very important, sensitive, thorny and disputed issue, before election day," Chen said.
The government has decided to hold a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-sponsored referendum asking if voters support seeking a UN seat using the name "Taiwan" and a KMT initiated referendum on the country rejoining the world body under the "Republic of China (ROC)" or any other "practical titles" in tandem with the March 22 presidential election.
Appeals to separate the poll and the referendums have been made recently, mainly by the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which is worried that the referendums would fail, partly because of the high threshold set for referendums in the Referendum Law (公民投票法) and partly because of a boycott the KMT is likely to stage.
"It's not necessary to hold the referendums together with the national election as long as we make the threshold a simple majority of voters casting ballots, removing the 50 percent threshold. Referendums can be held at any time," Chen told the paper.
In other developments, lawmakers from the DPP and the KMT failed to reach a consensus yesterday on a legislative resolution on the nation's UN bid at a cross-party meeting.
The KMT caucus proposed a resolution draft that said the legislature should urge the government to speed up efforts to get "our country" into the UN and other international organizations, setting aside the controversial issue of which name to use to represent the country.
"We reserved approval of the draft as it failed to reflect equality between Taiwan and China. We also worried that the KMT will launch a boycott of the two referendums and use the resolution as a substitute for the referendums," DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said.
The DPP caucus told a press conference yesterday that they would not support the proposal until the KMT shows it some respect.
"A referendum for `returning' or `participating in' the UN is our policy. They need to show respect by adding this sentence to the agreement in return for our support," DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
He said that the referendum would be held along with the presidential election and that the KMT should not confuse the public by proposing the agreement now, when there are only two weeks to election day.
"The referendum is the referendum and the agreement is the agreement. They are two different issues," Ker said.
Ker said the timing of the proposal showed that the KMT was merely trying to confuse the public. He also said there was no main body to the text.
"Up to now, there is only an introduction to the agreement. How do they expect us to sit down, negotiate and support the proposal when there is nothing to discuss?" Ker said.
He said that the KMT had initially planned to propose the agreement before the Lunar New Year but had postponed it until now for reasons unknown.
"For me, the agreement is only a document to tell the world what the legislature's attitude toward the UN issue is. It will never be able to replace the referendum because the result of the referendum will be the message from the Taiwanese people to the world. They mean different things," Ker said.
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (
Joining the UN was a "non-issue" for the DPP, Lin said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat