Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was reserved yesterday about a proposed grand debate on the party’s China policy, saying that a debate could end up taking away flexibility in handling cross-strait affairs if it was not well-planned.
Speaking on the sidelines of a book launch held by her foundation, Tsai responded to a media inquiry about DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) proposal to hold such a debate, which was initiated after the party’s recently completed review of its China policy was criticized by many as “unimpressive” and “conservative.”
“The [DPP’s] cross-strait policy has always been a sensitive issue of diverse opinions. Part of it is suitable for a debate and part of it is not. A debate could eventually eliminate the DPP’s room for maneuver unless it is well-planned and well-crafted,” Tsai said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The former presidential candidate said the DPP’s China policy would have to find a balance between its core values and the political reality and “it takes time” to accomplish the feat.
The DPP would have to engage the public in communication as well as with Beijing during the process, she added.
After the DPP’s loss in the presidential election in 2012, several party members called for a debate, which would have been the second “grand debate” on the party’s China policy after the one held in 1998 when Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) was chairman.
Several DPP lawmakers, including Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) and Pasuya Yao (姚文智) supported the proposal.
Tsai spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a book-launch to introduce Thinking Taiwan — a collection of 82 articles published on thinkingtaiwan.com, an online forum.
The forum, established in August 2012 under Tsai’s Thinking Taiwan Foundation, aims to promote a “New Thought movement” among the public following her loss in the 2012 election, Tsai said, adding that it was not a politically motivated move.
Since its establishment, the Web site has published more than 1,600 articles by more than 500 authors and has on average about 200,000 page views per week, according to the foundation.
The articles, on a wide range of topics, have been thought-provoking as the discussion had gone beyond the conventional “election politics” and market economy beliefs, Tsai said.
She added that it has been a pleasant surprise that 80 percent of the Web site’s readership comes from the under-40 age group and almost half of the authors were born after 1980.
“That eased some people’s concern that young people today know how to gather and process information, but do not know how to think,” Tsai said.
Tsai said she was confident about the emerging civil society in Taiwan and said that political parties would have to reconsider their roles and make adjustments accordingly.
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
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
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
RSS