President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said she would not intervene in the National Taiwan University (NTU) leadership controversy after Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔), the school’s president-elect, on Sunday called for her to resolve the problem
The Ministry of Education on April 27 declared Kuan unqualified for the post, because he had illegally served as an independent director and a member of the salary and auditing committees at Taiwan Mobile when he was a professor at the school, and because the election had been compromised due to a conflict of interest.
Kuan on Sunday said that he believed Tsai knows who was responsible for the ministry’s decision.
He has previously described the decision as an attempt to undermine the university’s autonomy for political reasons.
He said he hoped Tsai would resolve the dispute by the second anniversary of her inauguration this coming Sunday.
He also urged “those who are concerned about the election to take concrete actions to help the university by donating money.”
Without a formal president, the university could lose funding and its competitive edge, he said.
When asked about Kuan’s comments during a breakfast interveiw with radio talk show host Clara Chou (周玉蔻), Tsai said: “As the president, I will not make a decision on the issue, as it is the Ministry of Education’s responsibility.”
It is crucial the government prevent educational issues from becoming politicized, she said.
“This is a legal issue, not a political issue... Asking the president to interfere would be politicizing it. That would not be right,” she said.
Asked if she knew who made the decision to reject Kuan’s appointment, Tsai said: “Can he tell me who that person is?”
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS