After days of speculation, Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) is now confirmed to be the next vice premier, a senior government official told the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity yesterday.
The source told the Taipei Times that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would announce the appointment of Vice Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) to the premiership by Wednesday and that Chen would announce the list of his Cabinet members the day after Ma’s official appointment.
There has been speculation recently that Chen and Jiang would take up the premiership and vice premiership, but neither has yet confirmed that they would.
However, Chen and Jiang said that Ma has invited them to the Presidential Office for discussions.
“It’s the president’s authority to appoint the premier, and it’s the premier’s authority to name the vice premier, so it’s really not the time for them to say anything, since the president has not announced the appointment,” the unnamed official said.
Before becoming the head of the Executive Yuan’s Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission in 2008, and then the Minister of the Interior in 2009, Jiang was a professor at National Taiwan University’s department of political science.
In addition, media have speculated that Public Constructions Commission (PCC) Minister Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) has been tapped to replace Jiang as interior minister and that former Kaohsiung County commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) would be appointed minister without portfolio.
Neither confirmed nor denied the rumors yesterday.
“I’m not denying it, but it’s just inappropriate for me to say anything at the moment because I haven’t received the final notice from my superior,” Lee told reporters when asked if he were going to be the next minister of the interior.
With a background as a civil engineer, Lee entered politics as the head of the Taiwan Provincial Government’s Hydraulic Engineering Office, then became deputy commissioner of Taipei County before becoming the PCC minister.
Yang gave a similar response.
“The [appointment] has not been confirmed yet, since I haven’t heard about the final decision. I’ll talk more if it’s been confirmed,” Yang said by telephone.
Yang, also a civil engineer, started his political career as a technician in the Kaohsiung County Government, and was eventually elected as county commissioner as a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member.
However, he quit the party in 2010 after failing to win the DPP’s nomination to contest the Greater Kaohsiung mayoral election and switched his support to the pan-blue camp, helping Ma in his re-election bid.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS