While China's highest legislative body yesterday began deliberations on an agenda that includes the closely watched anti-secession bill, reports yesterday said the bill itself would not be reviewed until today, at the earliest.
As of press time yesterday, China's state-run Xinhua newswire reported only that a draft of the anti-secession bill would be deliberated during a session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) that began yesterday and will continue until Wednesday. The bill is the seventh of 20 items on the agenda.
Although Taiwanese officials had expected the bill to be looked at as early as yesterday, Tsang Hin-chi (曾憲梓), a Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee of the NPC, told the Central News Agency that it was unlikely.
Tsang refrained from elaborating on the content of the bill, but said that it would be reviewed today.
If the draft bill clears the Standing Committee, it will be handed to the NPC in the spring of next year for approval.
Once it clears the legislative branch, the bill must be approved by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) before it can be officially enacted. Analysts say the bill could be implemented in March at the earliest.
While Chinese authorities have been secretive about the details of the bill, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po (
The bill is meant to ensure a unified China and cross-strait peace and provide a legal basis for the use of "non-peaceful" means in handling disagreements with Taiwan when left with no choice, the report quoted the source as saying.
The Central News Agency also reported from Beijing yesterday that a source said the bill's preamble states that "Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People's Republic of China. The sacred task of completely unifying the motherland belongs to all Chinese people, including the Taiwanese compatriots."
However, the proposed bill has been seen as a serious provocation to cross-strait relations here. National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (
Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (
"If this bill is enacted, it will prove to be in conflict with cross-strait stability. It will unilaterally change the status quo. This is something that will be very hard for Taiwan to tolerate," Wu said.
Wu and his deputies have appeared on several television and radio shows for interviews this past week, each time reiterating that the anti-secession bill indicates China's hostility and calling on the international community to recognize that it is China, and not Taiwan, that is moving to change the status quo unilaterally.
Wu said that the unification law the Chinese authorities had touted in the past was unacceptable to people here because it assumed a specific end result, namely unification. He said that the anti-secession law went even further, assuming that China and Taiwan are unified.
The council also said yesterday that it was closely watching the anti-secession legislation, saying that officials had been observing the progress of the bill.
Council Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS