Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) yesterday proposed freezing the party’s so-called “Taiwan independence charter” to boost its chance of returning to power.
Ker, who convened the last of a series of meetings on the party’s China policy yesterday, proposed the idea unexpectedly in an article titled: DPP China policy with a new global perspective, but stressed that the views expressed in the paper were his own.
“The DPP has always upheld the Taiwanese identity and its core values, and there is no need to go back to working on the Taiwan independence movement. With that, I propose freezing the independence charter and bidding farewell to the old days so we can formulate a new cross-strait policy based on a new global perspective,” Ker wrote in the article.
If the party wishes to return to power, it has to show the voters, China and the international community that it is capable of managing cross-strait relations, he added.
“It’s a freeze, not an abolition. It could be unfrozen,” Ker said after the article was presented.
The so-called independence clause is an article in the party’s charter that calls for the establishment of the Republic of Taiwan. Beijing has always said that the independence charter was the primary roadblock to it engaging with the DPP.
DPP spokesperson Xavier Chang (張惇涵) told a press conference held after the meeting that the caucus whip’s opinion was his personal view and did not represent DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) position on the matter.
Su’s position on the matter remains unchanged: The chairman views Taiwan as an independent and sovereign country given the series of constitutional amendments, presidential elections and legislative elections that have taken place over the years, Chang said.
The independence charter was drafted when the nation was still under martial law, during a time when democracy advocates aspired to establish a new country, the spokesperson said.
Ker’s proposal immediately sparked heated discussion among party members and supporters on the Internet, with some netizens describing the proposal “a betrayal of the DPP’s founding spirit.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS