Referendums 2021

The government should step up efforts on green energy development in line with global trends and meet the increasing demand for electricity from businesses in Taiwan, a business representative and academic suggested Sunday.

Taiwan's Saturday referendum result that failed to overturn its decision to allow the import of pork containing ractopamine will help Taiwan-United States trade talks, though a full-scale free trade agreement (FTA) is still not in the near term, two American scholars told CNA.

Taiwanese voters on Saturday narrowly rejected the four referendum questions put to them in a national vote characterized by a relatively low turnout and nearly identical vote margins on almost all four issues.

The outcome of the votes in Taichung on Saturday's national referendums is a warning sign to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) in the city's legislative by-election next month, an academic said Saturday.

Taiwan should see its ties with the United States strengthen further in the future, scholars said, after a referendum advocating a ban on imports of pork containing a controversial feed additive failed to pass on Saturday.

A referendum seeking to unseal and restart work on Taiwan's Fourth Nuclear Power Plant failed to pass Saturday, the first time people have been allowed to directly vote on the facility that has been debated and under construction for more than two decades.

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said the failure of four nationwide referendums at the polls Saturday was a testament to the public's support for the government's policies.

Eric Chu (朱立倫), chairman of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), apologized to party members after all four KMT-backed referendum proposals -- including two directly initiated by the party -- failed at the polls Saturday.

The number of people who supported each of the four referendum initiatives voted on Saturday were outnumbered by those who opposed them, Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said when releasing the results Saturday.

The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) was muted in its response to the defeat of a referendum on pork imports that could have complicated trade with the United States, saying only that it hoped to continue to strengthen trade ties.