Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that she would not rule out visiting Beijing and meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) if she wins the Jan. 16 election.
Asked by reporters whether she would visit Beijing if invited, given the widespread public criticism of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) planned meeting with Xi in Singapore tomorrow, especially from the pan-green camp, Tsai said: “There are just over 70 days left until the election and considering the atmosphere in society, I think the possibility of my visiting Beijing is not too high, but if I am elected next year, if the conditions that I mentioned before — including openness and transparency, equality and dignity, and no politics are met — I would not rule out the possibility.”
However, Tsai took a tougher tone commenting on Ma’s press conference at the Presidential Office yesterday morning and his remark that tomorrow’s meeting would create the basis to “build a bridge” for future meetings and interactions between the leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Photo: CNA
“If Taiwan’s society and its leader do not create the necessary mechanism, and follow the necessary procedures to allow society to take part in the decisionmaking process on major decisions, allowing parliamentary supervision and having transparency of information, then even if there is a bridge, it is not a concrete and stable one,” Tsai said on the sidelines of a campaign event in Penghu County.
The public does not have a problem with cross-strait interactions and meetings of top leaders unless opaqueness becomes an issue, she said.
Later yesterday, DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said during a radio interview that the DPP would not organize a “supervisory group” to monitor Ma when he is in Singapore, as the party did in 1993 when then-Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and China’s then-Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Wang Daohan (汪道涵) held a meeting in Singapore.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards. The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month. In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China. The Strait Herald — owned by newspaper
RSS