The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday accused former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) of belittling the country at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru.
Lien, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) envoy to this year’s summit, described his encounter with Hu on Friday as an “interesting” meeting between two “old friends.”
“It is very significant for old friends to meet each other outside of Asia,” the former vice president told reporters after his 40-minute meeting with Hu at the hotel where the Chinese leader was staying.
PHOTO: AFP
DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said Lien had not met Hu as the official envoy of his country but as a private citizen, which had belittled Taiwan’s status as a sovereign country.
He said the meeting repudiated Ma’s claim that both sides of the Taiwan Strait had agreed not to deny each other’s existence, or “mutual non-denial.”
Lai said the DPP was concerned that Lien’s referral to Hu as an “old friend” indicated that the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were cultivating a closer relationship.
Citing Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang’s (秦剛) correction of a foreign journalist who referred to Ma as “Taiwan’s president,” during a press conference in Beijing on Thursday, Lai said that mutual non-denial was a myth.
He said Ma had not reached any such agreement with China, yet claimed Beijing was showing Taiwan “goodwill.”
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) said Lien had addressed Hu as “General Secretary Hu,” referring to his position as CCP general secretary, while Hu addressed Lien as “chairman,” referring to his post as honorary KMT chairman.
“Lien turned the meeting into the latest example of the KMT-CCP communication platform and forgot that he was representing the nation,” Yeh said.
The KMT-CCP platform was detailed in Lien and Hu’s five-point “vision for cross-strait peace” in April 2005 in Beijing and based on the so-called “1992 Consensus.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS