The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20.
Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee.
The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The invitation is in line with Article 15-2 of the Act on Exercising Legislative Yuan Powers (立法院職權行使法), Hung said, urging the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus not to block the measure.
Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is to chair cross-caucus negotiations and everything would be on the table, he added.
The TPP yesterday said that the legislature should hear a state of the nation address.
The legislature can invite the president to deliver such an address at the opening session every year, it said, adding that Lai should, by law, be required to answer legislators’ questions.
DPP caucus convener Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said that Lai was amenable to making such an appearance and that the party was willing to discuss the issue during cross-caucus negotiations as long as the demands are legal.
The parties were unclear on whether Lai would leave after giving the address, or whether he should respond individually to each question or address all questions simultaneously, Wu said, suggesting that the party caucuses address the issue by clarifying Article 15-4 of the Legislative Yuan Powers Act.
The article states that party caucuses should discuss during cross-caucus negotiations the total time for questions, the number of people, the order in which they ask their questions and the number of questions allotted to parties based on legislative seats, should legislators still have questions after the president’s address.
Separately, DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposal to restrict elected representatives from visiting China was again blocked from being put on the discussion roster by the Procedure Committee.
The KMT also proposed removing the restrictions on people wishing to visit China, prioritize measures to allow Chinese tourists to visit the offshore counties of Kinmen, Penghu and Lienchiang, and increase prices for public food procurement from NT$26 per kilogram to NT$34 per kilogram.
Additional reporting by CNA
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan