As the new chairman of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is adopting a more moderate political stance, two TSU "allies" within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that they believed the DPP should follow suit.
DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said at a press conference that the DPP's presidential hopefuls should be open to debate about the party's political positioning so as to elect a candidate "who can find a better approach for the entire pan-green camp."
"The prevailing DPP strategy is facing an immediate crisis," he said. "Problems resulting from the president's poor achievements over the past few years and a decline in his popularity have cost us a considerable number of votes."
Cheng estimated that the DPP had lost last month's mayoral elections and the city councilor elections in 2005 by a total of 965,000 votes to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Only by choosing the party's future strategy could the DPP bridge the ballot gap, he said.
Cheng said that the TSU's decision to distance itself from its previous "extreme approach" meant that the DPP stance would be seen as being too radical, a situation for which "President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the party headquarters should be held responsible."
He added that the TSU and former president Lee Teng-hui (
"The TSU did the right thing and I believe the DPP is more capable [than the TSU] and should therefore move toward the middle," he said.
Approached by the media yesterday, former DPP legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), who advocated for a "middle approach," said it would be a positive development for the nation "if both the TSU and the DPP were to take the correct approach," without elaborating.
DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-chin (
She said the TSU's shifting gear only showed that the TSU and Lee Teng-hui had recognized the new "political reality" -- in other words, that it had recognized the difficulties the DPP had encountered as the party in power.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said the DPP had always maintained "Taiwan first" and "Taiwan value" as the core aspects of its philosophy.
He did not directly answer a media inquiry as to whether the DPP should change its approach, but said that no matter what the new TSU stance was, it would be impossible for it to depart from a Taiwan-centered approach.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS