Opposition parties yesterday criticized the policies of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) ahead of a speech she has planned for this morning to mark seven years in office, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) separately defended her record.
The Tsai administration has established 30 “national teams” and 10 “special project offices,” but has had little to offer in terms of policy implementation and actual governance, Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) told a news conference in Taipei.
The appointment of people who lack professional knowledge to task forces is a sign of politics superseding professionalism, Chiu said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The DPP must face internal administration and foreign diplomacy challenges instead of attempting to rule by sloganeering, he said, urging the administration to focus on traffic safety, economic growth, helping industry and improving diplomacy.
New Power Party (NPP) Chairwoman Claire Wang (王婉諭) said that while the Tsai administration should be commended for upholding the nation’s autonomy and performing well on the diplomatic front, its double standards on government corruption have been a failure.
Honesty and public integrity are the least the public can expect from politicians, Wang said, adding that the DPP, as the majority party in the legislature, must take full responsibility for government failures.
The only way to ensure government oversight would be to deny the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative majorities, she said.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chairman Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said that the Tsai administration performed well regarding COVID-19 prevention, but its social reforms were lackluster, while its national defense platforms were outright failures.
Tsai’s performance over the past seven years has been a letdown for the younger generation that voted for her, KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said, citing polls from the Foundation for the People. Chiang is chairman of the foundation.
Despite being elected on promises to make Taiwan a better place for young people, Tsai received an average of 4.03 out of 10 among respondents under 40 years old, Chiang said.
The poll was conducted on Facebook from Monday to Wednesday targeting people aged 20 or older. It garnered 1,200 valid responses and claimed a margin of error of 2.83 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent.
Tsai is to give a speech at 9am today focusing on thanking people for their support and the Cabinet for its hard work, and affirming that the government’s efforts over the past seven years have redefined Taiwan and allowed the international community to see the nation in a new light, the Presidential Office said.
The speech would also touch on Taiwan’s pivotal role in the global supply chain and its critical location in the region’s geopolitics, it said.
At a separate news conference, DPP legislators touted the administration’s work.
The Tsai administration oversaw multiple hikes of the minimum wage, increased the tax waiving threshold for unmarried people to NT$416,000 (US$13,559) from NT$303,000 and increased rental subsidies to NT$300 billion last year from NT$2 billion in 2016, DPP Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) said.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that the nation’s defense industry has improved greatly under Tsai and that the national defense budget comprised 2 percent of GDP.
The level of international support for Taiwan is unprecedented and one of the reasons for this achievement is the success of the government’s policies, DPP Legislator Lo Chi-cheng (羅致政) said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS