The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday introduced its new officials appointed by DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), including a pair of female directors said to excel at social advocacy, but who have no experience in politics.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Liao Chin-kuei (廖錦桂) and Department of Women’s Development director Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) were introduced by DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) at a press conference after the first meeting of party officials under Tsai, who succeeded Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) as party chairperson on Wednesday.
Liao, a documentary director, and Lin, a gynecologist at Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, said they decided to go into politics after being deeply impressed by the Sunflower movement.
Describing herself as a “natural born rebel,” Liao said she has always questioned most politicians’ “thirst for power.”
“However, I was persuaded by Tsai, who told me that she would like to have a competent rebel as her colleague,” Liao said.
Lin, who served on the Gender Equality Commission, an advisory committee to the Executive Yuan, during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and DPP regimes, said she was surprised to receive the call from Tsai’s office.
While the DPP has always had more women-friendly policies, the party appears to have difficulty reaching out to women, in particular young women, and engaging them in dialogue, Lin said.
“That is why I want to ‘go into the system’ and hopefully facilitate changes from the inside,” she said.
Liao and Lin are part of Tsai’s “party Cabinet,” which was announced on Wednesday and is intended to expand the party’s reach and bring outside talent into the DPP.
Graduate student Fu Wei-che (傅偉哲) was brought in as director of the party’s Department of Youth Development, while Tai Chi-chuan (戴季全), who founded technology news site Techorange.com and Richi Technology Inc, was offered the post of Internet Department director, but subsequently turned it down.
Also introduced at the press conference were three spokespeople, Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲), who was retained from Su’s chairmanship, Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) and lawyer Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎).
The team of spokespeople immediately went to work, addressing the free economic pilots zones and the “broad one China framework” initiative proposed by a group of seven politicians and academics on Tuesday.
The pilot zones project should neither be a political struggle between the pan-green and pan-blue camps, nor a “take it or leave it” policy, Huang said, referring to the KMT’s attempt to demand full endorsement of the project from DPP mayors and county commissioners, or have the zones planned for DPP-governed municipalities canceled.
“Taiwan should not bet the future of its economy on a single experimental project. What we need is a grand economic strategy, which the DPP will address in the future,” Huang said.
Lin Chun-hsien said all proposals on cross-strait relations should be respected and discussed as Taiwan is a democratic country with freedom of speech.
“What remains unchanged — and what should not change — is that the nation’s future should be determined by its 23 million people,” 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
‘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