The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said it is “unbearable to see” a party with a 100-year-long history having to stoop to citing a “strange article” with a view that “curiously deviates from the US official and academic mainstream’s stance” in order to attack the DPP.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus held a news conference yesterday calling DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) “violent Ing” and claiming that the US has given her a slap in her face, citing an article in The Diplomat magazine by Dennis Hickey, a professor of political science and director of the graduate program in global studies at Missouri State University, that questioned Tsai’s pro-independence stance and her “subsidizing [of the] extremists” who attacked government agencies.
“Hickey said in his article that the DPP has been employing ‘a Middle Eastern practice’ of gathering people to cause skirmishes, known as a ‘rent-a-mob,’ and ‘subsidizing extremists who attack government ministries,’ making it ‘increasingly difficult for Americans to sensibly argue that Taiwan is a model of democracy,’” KMT deputy caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said.
The KMT said that Hickey’s article shows that “the US recognizes the fact Tsai had deeply intervened and financially supported the Sunflower movement and the anti-curriculum movement.”
“The occupation of government agencies is a typical Middle Eastern terrorist group’s practice; the US is really worried that Taiwan could get ‘ISIS-ized,’” Lin said, referring to the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and claiming the US is also concerned that Tsai’s presidency would bring Taiwan toward de jure independence and drag the US into a war.
KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said the article indicates that Tsai’s US visit earlier this year was a failure, despite the DPP saying it was a success.
“It is a serious problem” that the US, at this point, is making this kind of comment about Tsai, questioning Taiwan’s democracy and suspecting that there might be a war if Tsai gets elected, Hung said.
The DPP said that the article “is biased on a viewpoint that is extremely different to that of US officials and mainstream academics.”
“It is an article believed to have no reference value, but the KMT is desperately clinging to it, taking it as a ‘driftwood on the angry sea,’” DPP spokesperson Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said, adding that Tsai’s US tour met with positive responses from the US.
The article’s likening of Taiwan’s recent democratic movements to “violent Middle Eastern mobs” is “not only rude, but also inappropriate,” Cheng said, adding that Susan Stevenson, deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy at the US Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, when visiting Taiwan during the 318 movement, said that the US acknowledges that Taiwan is a vivacious democracy where everyone has a right to the freedom of speech.
“The KMT [is using the article as an attempt to] defame its own countrymen and say that social movements equate to Taiwan being ‘ISIS-ized.’ It is just sad to witness a 100-year-old party’s [degeneration],” Cheng said.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with