President-elect Tsai Ing-wen has met with People First Party Chairman James Soong for the first time since January’s presidential election.
During the election, Tsai ran on behalf of the Democratic Progressive Party, while Soong ran as the People First Party candidate.
Tsai said that Wednesday’s meeting was designed to allow the two to exchange views on issues such as Taiwan’s pension system. She said she believes that in the future, she will borrow from Soong’s experience and ideas.
She said that Soong’s calls for cross-party dialogue throughout the presidential campaign led her to decide to meet with the heads of other political parties. She said she hopes that different political parties can join together to discuss the issues Taiwan faces.
"We also hope that we can improve communication between political parties through talks between political party leaders. We even hope to build a platform to allow us to jointly discuss many issues this country and this society face, including some current issues that have already become crises," said Tsai.
After an hour-long closed-door meeting, Tsai said she found that she and Soong have similar views on the pension and education systems, as well as on judicial reform.
Soong said that he showed Tsai a document on the resettlement of anti-communist soldiers in Taiwan after the loss of Mainland China in 1949. He said that Taiwan owes the freedom and security it enjoys today to these 500,000 soldiers. He said that officials should keep these soldiers in mind when making policy decisions about pensions.
Tsai said that her discussion with Soong gave her a sense of history that will help her policy decision be more balanced.