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c)
d)
the 29 members of the Control Yuan would be appointed by the President with the approval of the National Assembly (this is to take place next February);
the President would have the right to nominate the Head of the Judicial Yuan subject to the approval of the National Assembly.
The Opposition denounced these changes as an attempt by the National Assembly, dominated by the ruling Kuomintang, to expand its power and saw the whole thing as "the beginning of chaos". Similar objections had been publicly voiced in a demonstration in Taipei on 24 May organized by a number of university professors to protest at the amount of power being arrogated by the National Assembly and at the failure to provide for direct Presidential elections. Some 3,000 people took part in these demonstrations. The National Assembly session itself closed to a similar demonstration outside its doors.
2. On 15 May, the Legislative Yuan passed the revisions of Article 100 of the Criminal Code which effectively decriminalized the purely verbal advocacy of Taiwan independence. As a result, 6 Independence activists and one member of the Chinese Communist Party had been sentenced under the previous Article 100 were released on 18 May when the revised law went into effect. It was also announced that sedition charges would be dropped against two leaders of the United States-based World United Formosans for Independence Organization who were arrested in Taiwan last September The best known of those to be released so far, is Huang Hua, a member of the DPP, who was serving a sentence of 10 years imprisonment for advocating the independence of Taiwan.
3. On 29 May, the Legislative Yuan passed the budget despite attempts by Opposition members to stop the vote on the grounds that it was simply funding enterprises owned by the ruling Party, the Kuomintang. A budget totalling US$42.52bn was approved with a projected deficit $8.14bn (an increase of 8.3 per cent). The Legislative Yuan made a cut of about 2 per cent from the original government proposals. Military expenditure accounted for about 24 per cent of the budget, 17 per cent was allocated to economic development and about 15 per cent to educational and cultural activities.
Relations with the mainland
4. Some new steps forward were taken in relations with the mainland during the month. From 12 May, the former Minister of Economics, Chao Yao-tung started on a month long visit to China in his capacity as an adviser to the Chunghwa Economic Research Institute. The Chinese treated him with great respect. He had meetings with the President Yang Shangkun, Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji and Vice Premier Wu Xueqian. He also met the Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Vice Minister of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic System. There was little indication of what substance, if any, resulted from these meetings. Later in the month, the President of Academia Sinica, Wu Ta-you also paid a
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