Taiwanese Parliament Calls for Nuclear Project’s Revival

After two days of bitter debate, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament early today passed a resolution calling on the government to resurrect immediately a $5.4-billion nuclear power plant project it had ordered scrapped in October.

The 134-70 vote was decisive, with only three opposition members joining the 67 representatives from President Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party in voting against the resolution. Senior members within Chen’s party said the government would reject the result and call for mediation of the issue.

“The president is empowered [by the constitution] to mediate, and he will see if some kind of compromise solution is possible,” said Parris Chang, chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee and a member of Chen’s party.

The vote, coupled with the government’s response, in effect prolongs an intense political standoff that has soured Taiwan’s political climate for months, eroded business confidence and presented Chen’s fledgling government with its biggest leadership challenge since his election 10 months ago.

Chen campaigned on a pledge to halt construction of the controversial plant on environmental grounds. Leaders within the powerful opposition Nationalist Party insist that the project is vital to meeting Taiwan’s energy needs amid a fast-growing economy.

The Nationalists lost the presidency for the first time in half a century in elections last March, but they retain a hefty majority in the 220-seat parliament.

Ordering the 2,700-megawatt nuclear plant was one of the party’s largest, most prestigious industrial undertakings and was sold to voters as a symbol of Taiwan’s future economic might.

If mediation fails, some political analysts predict, the opposition will seek other legal and political means to force the government to restart the project, possibly drafting binding legislation.

However, other observers suggested that the prospect of political instability and further economic drag might force the two sides into a compromise.

A proposal to complete the plant but not allow it to operate was said to be under discussion, as was taking at least one of Taiwan’s three operational nuclear plants offline early, observers said.

“There are good suggestions out there,” said Jonathan Shih, a spokesman for the Nationalists. “This issue has caused instability in society, in the stock market and the economy. There’s an urgent need to resolve it quickly.”

Government sources said the high-level mediation efforts are likely to begin later this week.

The opposition’s rage at the decision to halt the project at one point led to calls to launch a recall campaign against Chen, and the anger was still clearly visible during the debate that preceded today’s vote. Most of the invective was directed at Chang, who personally issued last October’s order to halt construction work at the plant, which is already about one-third completed.

The cost of ending the project, including penalties for canceling large contracts, is estimated at close to $3 billion.

The two-day debate followed a carefully worded ruling issued this month by Taiwan’s highest court stating that the government’s decision to scrap the nuclear plant contained procedural flaws but was not unconstitutional. The court ruled that the government was obligated to get parliamentary approval for major changes in policy.