The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is to launch a photography exhibition in Taipei to celebrate the party’s 30th anniversary, with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) reaffirming the DPP’s democratic ideals.
“A 30-year old party is like a 30-year old person, and it should be mature and stable to take on responsibility,” said Tsai, who is also the DPP’s chairperson, at the party’s weekly Central Standing Committee meeting.
The party has to push the nation forward and live up to the public’s expectations, she added.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
DPP members clashed with the establishment during the Martial Law era, and they engaged in elections and launched reforms in the democratic era, she said.
“Something has not changed over the past 30 years. It is the party’s special feeling for the public,” she said.
“The DPP has spent 30 years to prove it is a party worthy of trust. The 30-year-old DPP has returned to power and has to steadily develop the nation on the public’s mandate,” she said.
The exhibition will be held at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei, which will display images of DPP members and supporters and their achievements in advancing democracy, the party said.
Five short documentaries, collectively titled “Our Democratic Era,” will also be screened.
The DPP will hold its Central Executive Committee meeting at the Grand Hotel in Taipei on Wednesday next week, where the party announced its formation in 1986.
Asked whether the DPP would invite former party chairmen, including former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), to participate in celebration events, DPP spokesman David Huang (黃適卓) said the party had not discussed the matter.
Meanwhile, the DPP expressed its support for the government’s planned reform of a privileged pension system, which counts the term of service of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members in the KMT toward their seniority in the government, while granting them an 18 percent preferential savings interest rate.
A government report in 2007 showed that the nation had to pay an additional NT$300 million (US$9.55 million) to 581 such people in the pension system, DPP spokesman Yang Chia-liang (楊家俍) said.
“The nation’s resources should not be spent on benefiting the members of a single party,” Yang said.
Although the government abolished the regulations enabling the privileged pension system in December 1987, the government still has to pay preferential pension to KMT members who joined the party prior to that date, including former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and former Taichung mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), causing government expense to balloon, Yang said.
The system has misappropriated government assets and undermined social justice, so it has to be abolished, he said.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we