Tue, Feb 11, 2025 page1

• Lai urges unity at meeting of government branches’ leaders

  HANDY METAPHOR: The president compared the branches of government to five fingers, each with its own function, but only having strength when working together

  • By Chen Yun, Sam Garcia and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writers and CNA
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  President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday emphasized unity as he met with the leaders of the nation’s five branches of government at the Presidential Office in Taipei to discuss national policies.

  Lai exercised his constitutional power to call the meeting, hoping to encourage cross-party and intergovernmental cooperation in the face of severe political and economic challenges.

  Lai gave a speech emphasizing unity and presented the leaders with gifts before the closed-door meeting began.

  

  President William Lai, back, center, hosts a meeting with leaders from the nation’s five branches of government at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: screen grab from the Presidential Office’s Flickr page

  “The world faces severe challenges due to geopolitical shocks, the restructuring of supply chains and the rapid development of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence,” Lai said. “Taiwan faces threats from China’s diplomatic and military intimidation, and ‘united front’ infiltration.”

  “In the face of these challenges, Taiwan must unite,” he said, adding this was the only way to strengthen Taiwan’s national defense, economy and societal resilience.

  He compared the five branches of government to five fingers, each with its own function, but only having strength when working together.

  Through the meeting, the five branches can establish “a platform for communication, clarify constitutional boundaries, unite the nation, resolve disputes and jointly seek solutions to problems,” Lai said. “Whether facing external storms or internal disputes, we will firmly and unwaveringly move the nation forward.”

  Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) in a post-meeting news conference said that the attendees from the government branches all mentioned the difficulties in carrying out their duties and daily operations due to budget freezes and cancelations by the Legislative Yuan.

  Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) expressed the hope that the Executive Yuan would not request reconsiderations, but address problems with follow-up increases or decreases of the budget, Pan said.

  Lai has asked Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and Han to conduct interagency negotiations, so the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan could try to resolve the budget issue in a feasible way, he said.

  Asked whether the Executive Yuan had promised not to request a reconsideration by the legislature, Pan said that Lai expected to resolve the issues through negotiations before calculating the government’s budget.

  Given Han’s wisdom, vision and rich experience in the legislature, he must be able to achieve consensus among the governing and opposition parties to create a win-win result, Pan said.

  Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said that Cho and Han did not settle on “a solution that rules out reconsiderations,” but they agreed with Lai’s proposal to conduct negotiations between the Cabinet and the legislature to find a solution.

  Asked about the opposition’s suggestion that negotiations among leaders of the governing and opposition parties should first be held, Pan said the budget issue would for now be handled by the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Control Yuan, Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan.

  Whether to start a dialogue among party leaders depends on future developments, he said, adding the issue was not mentioned at the meeting.

  Asked whether interagency negotiations would be normalized, Pan cited Lai as saying that the meeting was convened with the authority granted by the Constitution to the president to gather the leaders to discuss national policies.

  Whether it is called an interagency negotiation or national policy discussion, the common purpose is to resolve problems for the good of Taiwan, Pan said.
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