Vice President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) of making empty campaign promises, adding that their partnership would have little bearing on his campaign for president.
Lai, the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, made the remarks after attending the opening ceremony of the Association for Star Alliance Pilots (ASAP) executive board meeting in Taipei. It was the first time the association has held the event in Taiwan.
“Since I launched my campaign for president, I have been responsibly presenting my policies for the country’s future. People have also seen the attempts of the KMT and TPP. The reason that they are talking about a partnership is because neither the KMT nor the TPP represent mainstream public opinion,” Lai said, adding that it seems as if they are “uniting with a secondary enemy to attack their main nemesis.”
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“As for the consensus they reached on Monday, I only have one word for it: ‘empty.’ It will not have any effect on the presidential campaign,” he said.
The KMT and TPP on Monday also agreed that the president should give the state of the nation address and listen to suggestions from lawmakers.
Lai yesterday said that the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) already allows the president to give such an address, but they can only do so with the legislature’s approval.
“Although the mechanism has existed for a while, no president has been invited to brief legislators, because lawmakers have never agreed on such a proposal in their negotiations,” he said.
Ko has criticized the insurance schemes available for farmers, saying they are like huge cash bonuses.
“I want to ask which farmers’ insurance scheme he plans to annul: farmers’ health insurance or agricultural insurance? Does he want to cancel farmers’ health insurance?” Lai asked. “If he did not talk about the policy, people would not notice that he is so clueless about national politics.”
Lai told the ASAP meeting that, aside from producing more than 90 percent of the world’s high-end chips, Taiwan also has a civil aeronautics industry that has grown into a trillion-dollar business.
Ninety percent of the aeronautics components used in commercial flights around the world are from Taiwan, he said.
“Building on this foundation, Taiwan would continue to be a reliable partner in the global supply chain, making us more closely connected with the international community,” Lai said.
In 2019, approximately 40.3 million commercial flights were operated by domestic and international airlines every year, with global passenger volume reaching 4.5 billion, he said.
“With the COVID-19 pandemic subsiding, we are glad to see a resumption of air transportation, and that demand for air travel is increasing. The International Air Transport Association estimated that the global aviation industry would fully return to pre-COVID-19 levels by 2025. We believe that pilots will continue to play a key role in contributing to global innovation and prosperity,” Lai said.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kuang (田中光) said it is urgent that Taiwan join the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which has made creating a “seamless sky” and promoting aviation safety its main missions.
“The Taipei Flight Information Region is one of the busiest airspaces in East Asia. In 2019, the region provided services to 1.85 million controlled flights and 722 million passengers departing or transiting through Taiwan,” Tien said. “Therefore, there is no doubt that Taiwan’s meaningful participation in ICAO is key to ensuring global aviation safety and security.”
“By sharing timely information and expertise, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration’s participation in ICAO would definitely contribute to mitigating aviation risks... Excluding Taiwan has a negative impact on integration of the Asia-Pacific region, which is a priority in recovering from the pandemic,” Tien 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
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
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
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