The opposition parties yesterday again blocked the Cabinet’s version of the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) and the NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Procedure Committee.
The opposition parties also passed the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proposal to invite President William Lai (賴清德) to the legislature for a question-and-answer session on national security matters and defense costs.
Lai on Monday night issued a video saying that he was willing to do so, provided that the procedures involved in such an event are in line with Paragraph 3, Article 4 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) and related Constitutional Court rulings.
yesterday.Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The legislature’s version of the act undermined the separation of powers, the nation’s finances and harmed people’s rights, he said.
The legislature’s consecutive abuse of legislative power is undermining Taiwan’s democracy, he said, adding that “at such a time, the president must uphold the nation’s constitutional system, protect the country and its people.”
Separately, the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee convener, KMT Legislator Wen Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), has put an item on today’s agenda.
The committee would hold a session asking officials, including the secretaries-general of the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, to deliver a report on whether the president and the premier would be legally responsible if they did not announce laws and countersign legislation.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
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