President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that the word “caretaker” was not in his dictionary, brushing aside calls to leave important decisions to a new administration, while promising to forge ahead on several regional trade agreements.
Following the elections on Saturday last week, which saw the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) win the presidency and legislature in a landslide, DPP officials have called for Ma’s administration to serve as a caretaker government, deferring important decisions to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
However, at an economic forum on Asian economic growth at the Grand Hyatt Taipei, Ma said that reviving economic growth and dealing with the slump in exports that followed the European debt crisis were global problems, while finding a new competitive edge for the economy was the inescapable responsibility of any Taiwanese leader.
Photo: CNA
At a time when the functionality of the WTO is declining and other nations are continually signing bilateral trade deals, Taiwan must follow the trend of the global economy, he said.
Economic integration is a new thing for Asia, he said, citing the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations, along with the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community last month.
While Taiwan wants to participate in each of these agreements, accession is difficult not only economically, but also for many political reasons, he said, promising to continue pushing for the nation to be included over the remainder of his term.
“It is I ‘still’ have four months, not I ‘only’ have four months,” he said, referring to his term’s expiration on May 20.
“My dictionary does not have the words ‘caretaker’ or ‘slacker,’ in it,” he added.
Ma said that a peaceful political environment was a necessary condition of market stability, adding that no one should “rule out” deals with China because such a policy would be not only mistaken, but also potentially fatal for Taiwan.
The president said a peaceful environment was also a precondition for economic growth, adding that the so-called “1992 consensus” had served to make both sides of the Taiwan Strait peaceful and prosperous over the past eight years, a period that saw Taiwan achieve the warmest possible relations with both the US and China.
Cross-strait peace was hard-won and people should learn to treasure and work hard to preserve it, he said, in an apparent jab at Tsai.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed tacit understanding between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that there is “one China,” but both sides have different interpretations of what “China” means.
Additional reporting by Abraham Gerber
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS