In the face of strong opposition from the party's local factions, the ruling DPP's Central Executive Committee yesterday agreed to call upon independent legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (
The decision, however, was immediately and strongly opposed by party members from the Tainan Division, who staged a protest at the DPP's Taipei headquarters.
PHOTO: LEE HUNG-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
The demonstrators threw eggs, waved banners and burst into the headquarters where they vented their anger, yelling, "We strongly oppose the party's decision to call upon Hsu," and, "The party has ignored the voices of local party members."
After learning of the protests against him, Hsu, however, appealed to the people of Tainan to give him a "second chance."
"Don't let resentment, which arose from past elections and the growth of factions, overshadow our cooperation. There is no issue on which we cannot be reconciled since we share the same political mission," Hsu said at a press conference yesterday afternoon, adding, "It's good to be back home."
Hsu, who has recently re-registered as a DPP member, yesterday said that he could sympathize with the protesters' anger, but that he hoped they would give "political idealists" like himself a chance to strive for a better future for the DPP.
Hsu, a former DPP member who left the party in 1995 to run in the legislative elections as an independent legislator, was defeated in Tainan's 1997 mayoral election by the party's candidate, George Chang (張燦鍙). A close friend and former classmate of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Hsu refused to endorse Chen in last year's presidential election. As a result, many view him as a traitor to the party and he has especially annoyed party members in Tainan.
But Hsu's performance in the legislature has enabled him to regain the party leadership's trust, especially following Chen's hint that the party would nominate any candidates who stood a good chance of winning the election.
Brushing aside protesters' concerns, the party's deputy secretary general Hsu Yang-ming (
He said that DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (
He added that heads of the party's Tainan headquarters had also been invited to attend the Central Executive Committee meeting to present their views.
"All considerations were taken into account and the decision at the CEC meeting was reached unanimously," Hsu Yang-ming said at a press conference after the meeting.
Hsu Yang-ming added that one of the protesters supported DPP legislator Lai Ching-te (
Incumbent Tainan Mayor Chang, who is in custody on corruption charges, is likely to try to run for a second term. He has argued that to do so would be the only way to clear his name, but he will now have to run as a non-DPP candidate.
The Central Executive Committee yesterday also agreed to ask Lee Chin-yung (李進勇), mayor of Keelung, to seek reelection to his post and national baseball star Chen Yi-hsin (陳義信) to run for a DPP seat as an aboriginal legislator.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS