Amid an ongoing controversy over Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) status as the nation’s “founding father,” Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) yesterday refused to bow to Sun’s portrait when a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker asked him to do so during a legislative question-and-answer session.
When taking the floor, KMT Legislator-at-large Chang Li-shan (張麗善) asked Premier Simon Chang (張善政) to walk to the center of the legislative chamber for the ceremonial “three bows” to Sun’s portrait, which hangs above the seat of the legislative speaker facing the chamber.
Chang Li-shan, who is from a politically influential family in Yunlin County, then asked Su, and all officials and lawmakers present at the chamber, to join her in the courtesy bows.
Photo: CNA
Su rebuffed her request, saying it was inappropriate to undertake such an action during a session and there was no precedent for it.
“If every legislator wanted to do so, it would not be in line with procedures,” Su said.
“I urge all legislators to respect their turn on the floor, and they should conduct themselves in an appropriate manner during the question-and-answer session,” Su added.
Chang Li-shan said that since the legislature has not yet approved a proposal to remove Sun’s portraits from public buildings, the legislative speaker, as the head of people’s elected representatives, should pay his respect to the Republic of China’s founding father.
Su replied: “I can decide on my own whether to face the portrait of the ‘founding father’ or not.”
Together with Simon Chang, the KMT legislator performed the courtesy bows to Sun’s portrait, as she bellowed the traditional summons of “first bow, second bow, third bow.” The other legislators and government officials did not join them and remained in their seats.
During the afternoon session, Simon Chang said: “In theory, it is OK to take such bows to Sun’s portrait.”
“It has always been OK to do so, but on what occasions? The legislative speaker has his way of presiding over the chamber, and we should also respect how the speaker conducts the sessions,” he said.
“I was not sure if it had violated the legislature’s regulations, but we should abide by the legislative speaker’s decision. So I will check with the him on this issue later on,” he added.
The premier said he was in a difficult position at the time, so he paid his respects with a slight dipping of his head.
On Friday last week, KMT legislators blocked a proposal to remove Sun’s portrait from public buildings by returning three related draft bills to the Procedure Committee.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) met with strong opposition from KMT legislators following his proposal to drop the tradition of saluting the portrait of Sun, referred to as the nation’s “founding father” by decrees under past KMT administrations.
Gao drafted amendments to the National Emblem and National Flag of the Republic of China Act (中華民國國徽國旗法) and the Oath Act (宣誓條例) for his proposal, saying that there is no constitutional basis for Sun’s title.
“The DPP has created a mechanism for transitional justice, which will deliberate on removing Sun’s portrait, and the proposals will be in its reports. As the KMT is opposed to the proposals, we are back to the Procedure Committee,” Gao said.
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
Carrefour Taiwan is to begin using a new name from the start of July, but it cannot divulge the name until then, the chairman of the supermarket chain's parent company said today. President Chain Store Co chairman Lo Chih-hsien (羅智先) was asked by reporters after a shareholders' meeting to confirm whether the company has settled on a new name for the supermarket brand. In March, the government-registered name of two Carrefour Taiwan branches was quietly changed to "Le Chia Kang" (樂家康) in Chinese, raising speculation that has been selected as the name. Lo said that because of local regulations and contractual obligations, the
RSS