People First Party (PFP) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) yesterday said that the PFP will continue to block the government's NT$480 billion arms-purchase proposal if President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) doesn't apologize to PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) for a comment he made last month.
"If [the president] does not apologize, the PFP will continue to veto the arms-purchase proposal," Chang said.
The PFP has demanded an apology for the president's May 8 allegation that Soong met secretly in the US with Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office Director Chen Yunlin (
In addition to demanding an apology, Chang, who is also the director of the PFP's Policy Research Center, said that his party would not support the arms bill until the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) addressed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
Lien last week said that he has replied to US congressmen who wrote a letter urging him to help get the arms package passed. The letter was endorsed by 33 US House representatives and delivered by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs to Lien on May 27. Taiwanese-American Representative David Wu was among the signers.
In the letter, the US congressmen told Lien that they sincerely hoped that he would support the arms-purchase proposal and urge KMT lawmakers to endorse it "without further delay."
In his response, Lien said that the government was to blame for the failure to get the bill passed, because DPP officials have been inflexible and unwilling to address the bill's flaws.
Lien pointed out that the DPP dragged its heels in coming up with a new budget after the opposition parties rejected their first proposal as too expensive and that the arms-budget request is far more expensive than the original figures cited by the Ministry of National Defense.
Lien said that he would urge KMT legislators to discuss these issues with the DPP during the next legislative session which begins in September.
However, he did not make any promises.
Chang said that his party would await the DPP's response to Lien's concerns.
"If the DPP does not persuade us with reasonable explanations regarding Lien's three major arguments, we will not endorse the arms-purchase proposal anyway."
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