The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday rejected speculation that the party would draw up a new resolution on Taiwan’s status.
DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future (台灣前途決議文) was the bottom line and there was no need to write a new resolution to replace it.
The resolution states that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country and that change to the “status quo” of independence should require the approval of the people of Taiwan in a national referendum. Taiwan does not belong to the People’s Republic of China, the resolution says, rejecting the “one China” principle and “one country, two systems” model promoted by China.
Tsai made the remarks in response to questions about a report published in the Chinese-language United Evening Express yesterday. The report claimed the DPP was planning to draft a resolution on the nation’s sovereignty and future development to be debated at the party’s National Congress on July 20.
The report said the Party Reform Task Force formed a five-person team to author the draft. The new resolution would emphasize the importance of Taiwan’s sovereignty and undertake to differentiate the DPP from the pro-unification Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the report said.
DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) yesterday dismissed the report as “groundless.”
Individual members of the task force may have had the idea of proposing a new resolution, but the party has no plan to do so, Cheng said.
Cheng said the newspaper had confused the facts, and the five-person team was indeed tasked with looking into revising the party platform. The task force, which meets twice a week, will look at three main issues: revising the party platform, internal party discipline and the party’s evaluation and nomination processes, Cheng said. The task force will propose a reform package on June 18 for debate at the National Congress.
The task force met yesterday. It’s work is ongoing and it has not reached its conclusions yet, Cheng said, adding that the group would meet again tomorrow.
Former DPP legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), a member of the task force, filed a motion yesterday to restore the party’s Department of Chinese Affairs, which was integrated with the Department of International Affairs. The party must have a separate unit to examine cross-strait issues as formal cross-strait talks are set to begin next Wednesday, he said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
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