Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday called for support from the opposition and anti-nuclear groups to sponsor a proposal for a referendum on the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Amid growing concerns over the safety of the near-complete plant, the government decided late last month that KMT lawmakers have to initiate a referendum to ask the public whether they support halting the construction.
The KMT has not yet decided on the referendum question, while it also remains unclear under whose name the proposal will be submitted to the legislature.
Ting yesterday proposed that the proposal be submitted by lawmakers across party lines with the backing of anti-nuclear groups — a way in which KMT lawmakers do not have to face the government alone in referendum debates.
If the proposal is co-sponsored by lawmakers across party lines, it will symbolize that a referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is a non-partisan issue, Ting said.
It will also help voters to debate the issue and cast their vote in the referendum based on the facts pertaining to the nuclear power plant, rather than party ideologies, he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
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