Protesters including senior military veterans pushed down a gate to Taiwan’s parliament building today and clashed with police as they tried to storm in over pension cutbacks.<\/p>\n
One former colonel was in a critical condition in hospital after attempting to climb a wall and falling.<\/p>\n
The protests were sparked by government plans to reform the military pension system, part of a wider pension cutbacks programme which triggered mass protests last year.<\/p>\n
Legislators passed a pension reform bill last June, cutting civil servants’ generous pension packages as the government warned it could no longer pay out on the high-interest deals.<\/p>\n
A separate bill targeting military pensions is expected to be discussed in the current parliament session.<\/p>\n
The backlash over the cuts is a major challenge for President Tsai Ing-wen, who has seen her popularity rating fall since her election two years ago.<\/p>\n
Dozens of protesters Tuesday pushed down a gate to the parliament compound in downtown Taipei as police attempted to stop them from rushing in.<\/p>\n
Retired general Wu Sz-huai fainted in the skirmish while former colonel Miao Te-sheng was seriously injured.<\/p>\n
Video footage showed a police officer trying to break Miao’s fall as he slipped from the second storey of a building, landing on his back.<\/p>\n
“We have spent more than a year protesting on the streets. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has completely ignored us, our petitions and protests,” one protester said in a video posted on the organising group’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
It called for the bill passed last year to be halted and for government negotiations to be held over the military pension plan.<\/p>\n
The presidential office appealed to protesters to remain calm and said the government had taken account of veterans’ concerns in drafting reforms.<\/p>\n
“Military pension reforms are to ensure the pension system can develop sustainably,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Within the limits the state finance allows … we hope to offer the best solution,” it added.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s pension schemes vary for different occupations and public sector retirees typically receive more generous packages than workers from other sectors which fall under a different labour pension system.<\/p>\n
The government has warned that various pension funds could go bankrupt as early as 2020 if the system is not overhauled.<\/p>\n
Among the reforms is the phasing out of a preferential 18 percent interest on savings for civil servants and military personnel.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protesters including senior military veterans pushed down a gate to Taiwan’s parliament building today and clashed with police as they tried to storm in over pension cutbacks. One former colonel was in a critical condition in hospital after attempting to climb a wall and falling. The protests were sparked by government plans to reform the military pension system, part of a wider pension cutbacks programme which triggered mass protests last year. Legislators passed a pension reform bill last June, cutting civil servants’ generous pension packages as the government warned it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7548,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions\/7548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}