Beijing would significantly curtail the possibility of cross-strait negotiations if it insists on a unification law with Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday.
"China will encounter a certain degree of restriction and difficulty if it tries to place Taiwan policy within a legal framework. It would lose a great deal of flexibility," said council Chairman Chiu Tai-san (
Chiu's was responding to comments by Wang Zaixi (
"If China must produce such a law, it has to take into account the international community's expectations that cross-strait problems can be solved by peaceful means," Chiu said.
Beijing would face unexpected difficulties if it implemented the unification law, Chiu added.
Wang said that China had not set a 20-year timetable to unify Taiwan.
However, he warned that Bei-jing would not rule out war if President Chen Shui-bian (
"New tensions may arise and even a serious crisis in the cross-strait situation if Chen obstinately pursues his timetable," Wang said in a front-page interview with the China Daily published yesterday.
"We cannot completely rule out the possibility [of a military conflict] though it is not at all what we hope for," Wang said.
Wang added that the cross-strait political stalemate would continue during Chen's second term unless he accepted the "one China" principle.
"It would be hard for both sides to break the present political stalemate in the short term," he said.
"There will be no way for us to break the ice in political ties in the coming four years unless Chen returns to the one-China principle. What we can do is just work hard to prevent bilateral relations from deteriorating," he said.
Wang said that Taiwan's security depended on how Chen deals with the "one China" principle rather than whether he bought more aircraft and missiles from the US.
Chiu said that the council was monitoring Beijing's media, psychological and legal campaigns to bring about unification. A unification law would be part of the legal campaign, he added.
Chen, who has said on numerous occasions that constitutional reform would focus on the structure of government, said during a trip to the south of the nation on Thursday that China was attempting to lay a legal foundation for it to use force against the nation.
"Taiwan's status is defined as a `special administrative region' in Beijing's draft of the unification law. Is it right for Beijing to do this?" he asked.
"I am very concerned about the unification law ... Can our 23 million people remain unwary of this situation?" he asked.
Chen added that nearly 500,000 Hong Kong residents had taken to the street to protest against Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law, an anti-subversion law, on July 1, 2003.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS