Taiwan Solidarity Union, 台聯

There's a lot of news in Taiwan lately, but most can be quickly summarized.

• The unconstitutional National Communications Commission(NCC), Taiwan's FCC, is structured to allow legislators to appoint NCC members based on the number of lawmakers each party has in the legislators. In otherwords, to make what should be an independent committee of experts into a political arm of the KMT. Despite this practice being declared unconstitutional, the KMT continues to use it and hopes to extend the model to the Central Election Commission (CEC). As far as I'm concerned, a public lottery for CEC or NCC seats would be a better way to assign it than letting legislators do it on partisan lines, especially something as important as the Election Commission!
• The legislature may miss its day to finish redistricting negotiations, which will result in something of a crisis considering the CEC wants to just use it's old plan if the politicians can't agree. The politicians say that's illegal. Conflict looms (this is of course the reason the KMT wants to alter the makeup of the CEC, to make sure the districts are drawn in a way favorable to them). Update: The shape of districts that couldn't be agreed on were decided by drawing lots.
  
• A-bian has filed an application for a constitutional interpretation of his authority to classify information as a state secret, of the president's "state confidentiality authority" and his constitutional immunity.
• Taiwan will now longer call China "our country" in their school textbooks, a fantastic and long overdue piece of news.
  

All that aside, the big news in my mind is the new direction that TSU chairman Huang Kun-hui (黃昆輝) wants to take the party. "In his inauguration speech, Huang said he was mulling changing the party's name and modifying the party's platform to reflect its move from the left toward the center." Read the article linked there for details.

The day of these announcements, TSU spiritual leader, aka Mr. Democracy, aka Lee Teng-hui, didn't open his mouth. But he did today, and when he did he shocked the Taiwanese news world and confused a lot of people.

李登輝轉性 一覺醒來全世界都變了慌了！ (自立晚報)
李登輝：何必再追求台獨 (聯合新聞網)
李登輝否認搞台獨、想訪大陸、讚胡錦濤 (聯合晚報)
李否認搞台獨》綠營錯愕：真的嗎？ (聯合晚報)
李登輝考慮修正台獨路線？馬英九：正面做法 (中央社)
李登輝從未主張台獨？黃昭堂：不同角度看法不同 (中時電子報)
台聯:李登輝認為台灣主權獨立 堅持正名制憲 (中央社)
李登輝有意訪大陸 國台辦：注意到有關報道 (亞洲時報)
台聯：李登輝主張引進中資 未違反戒急用忍 (中央社)
李登輝放棄台獨？辜寬敏：不解與遺憾 (中央社)

As you can see, people are making a big fuss over very little, since the TSU and DPP have both held this position (that Taiwan needs not seek independence since it is already independent) for some time. It may help alter the TSU's image, though. Let's see what happens next.

The blues will use this to try and further divide the green side, too.