A refusal by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday to enter into negotiations on any issue regarding budget proposals for state-owned businesses means the extraordinary legislative session’s budget review will be prolonged until Friday.
The Legislative Yuan is to vote on 1,668 different proposals from the KMT on either slashing or freezing funding, nearly five times as many as last year, even after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said that it would drop its own 818 proposals for slashing and freezing funding.
The DPP proposed yesterday afternoon to have a marathon session lasting until midnight on Friday to get through the bulk of the proposals.
Photo: CNA
According to Legislative Yuan statistics for 2012, 2014 and last year, inter-party negotiations on proposals on state-owned businesses budgets drastically lowered the number of proposals that had to pass the legislature to 181, 92 and 211 respectively.
At the rate the voting was being conducted — the extraordinary session concluded 20 proposals between 2:30pm and 6pm yesterday — there was little chance of completing all 1,668 KMT proposals by Friday, the DPP said.
Meanwhile, earlier yesterday afternoon, the KMT’s proposal to slash NT$500 million (US$15.57 million) from the operational costs of national cultural establishments was criticized by the DPP as “opposing for opposition’s sake.”
The KMT is proposing slashing funding that former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration approved, including covering the operational costs of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
“Perhaps the KMT is implementing transitional justice as well,” Chen added.
Chen asked whether the KMT was willing to make up the difference, as KMT Legislator Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚) proposed slashing NT$500 million from the budget, while the proposed budget was only NT$346 million.
DPP Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said the KMT was not giving affairs of state their due respect by displaying “such a cavalier attitude.”
Additional reporting by CNA
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS