Taiwan's military pledges its allegiance to the nation, and it is unlikely that it would stage a coup as might be the case in other newly emerging democracies, a spokesman for the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
"We have faith in our own military," he said at a press conference at the Government Information Office in Taipei yesterday afternoon.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told the media briefing that he was quite confident that a military coup like the one that took place in Thailand on Tuesday would not happen in Taiwan.
"The military culture in Thailand as well as many other Southeast Asian countries is quite different from what we have here in Taiwan. ... The majority of the Taiwanese people believe that we must play by the rules," Wu said.
He added that a strong democratic structure was in place in Taiwan, which meant that a coup would be almost impossible to carry out.
Wu also used the opportunity to say that the government's attitude toward cross-strait relations remained unchanged, and that the government's policy of opening up to visitors from China had not changed.
He said that 60 Chinese employees of pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson came to Taiwan for a meeting on Aug. 16, while 421 Chinese employees of Microsoft came to Taiwan for their annual managerial meeting on Aug. 20. Another 328 Chinese publishers arrived yesterday to attend a seminar for cross-strait publishers.
For the near future, Wu said, the MAC has approved requests from another four groups of Chinese visitors: 100 members of a Chinese Buddhist organization who will arrive on Oct. 4, 500 members of the Chinese Hakka Association on Oct. 27, 600 travel agents on Nov. 1 and another 100 Chinese publishers for a separate seminar on Nov. 10.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
The Civil Aviation Administration yesterday said that it is considering punishments for China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines for making hard landings and overworking their cabin crew when the nation was hit by Typhoon Kong-rey in October last year. The civil aviation authority launched an investigation after media reported that many airlines were forced to divert their flights to different airports or go around after failing to land when the typhoon affected the nation on Oct. 30 and 31 last year. The agency reviewed 503 flights dispatched by Taiwanese airlines during those two days, as well as weather data, flight hours
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Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in
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