General Association of Chinese Culture (GACC) president Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday resigned from his post and vowed not to intervene in the operations of the government-funded association, citing administrative interference.
As the vice president declined to assume interim leadership of the association, Liu, speaking at a news conference in Taipei, called on “those in charge at the Ministry of the Interior to intervene and provide guidance.”
Liu stepped down after his term ended on Monday, despite no replacement having yet being named.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
“I won’t be going to work tomorrow and I will no longer have anything to do with the association’s affairs,” he said.
Liu, who was appointed in 2009 by then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), said that because the ministry has stressed its intention to install new board members and a new president at the association, it should do it now.
In response to media reports that he was reluctant to leave his post, Liu said: “It’s a joke. This means nothing to me. Throughout my whole life, I have never been reluctant to leave any post I’ve taken on.”
Liu criticized the ministry for “using the Executive Yuan to interfere with the association’s meetings” and “using disproportionate measures against those with cultural and business interests,” citing those as reasons for his resignation.
An executive association meeting on Monday called to review the membership of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and 624 other potential members was canceled due to the lack of a quorum, prompting Liu to say the way the Presidential Office had issued instructions was unbearable.
“If the government does not regard the association as a civic group, I suggest that Tsai bring the GACC under the control of the Presidential Office, which would save her the trouble of having hundreds of people applying for membership every four years,” Liu said.
At a separate news conference, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said he respected Liu’s decision to resign.
Huang said if Liu had followed convention and handed the GACC over to the new president as in the past, there would not have been any conflict.
Huang said the GACC was established and run by the government, adding that the president has always led its operations.
Huang said that even during Liu’s presidency, several important association meetings took place at the Presidential Office.
“After leading the association for many years, Liu must have known better than anyone the role and nature of the association. Any accusations of political interference are simply meaningless sophistry,” Huang said.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS