A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday said President Chen Shui-bian's (
They told a press conference that the US had decided to put off approval of its sale of 66 F16 C/D fighter aircraft to Taiwan because of the UN bid, without giving the source of the information.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday quoted an anonymous source at the air force as saying that the air force has encountered difficulties obtaining an offer letter from the US before October as the US has decided to defer review of the case.
The legislature last month approved a budget of NT$16 billion (US$486.77 million), a tenth of the seven-year plan from this year to 2014, to buy 66 F16 C/D fighters and a resolution stipulating that the budget cannot be used unless the Ministry of National Defense briefs the legislature on the US proposal in October.
"It has been the US' stance to maintain the equilibrium of air power between Taiwan and China over the past 50 years," KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-ming (
"The delay in the sales [of the fighter craft] shows that a serious problem has emerged in the US-Taiwan relationship," Shuai said.
He said that the delay would deprive Taiwan of an advantage in air power and called on the president to stop damaging Taiwan-US relations.
"The US deferred the case because it didn't want to displease China, considering the situation in the Middle East and North Korea. It is also worried that Chen would use approval of the sale as propaganda that the US backs its UN referendum plan," KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (
The Presidential Office yesterday declined to respond to the accusations.
Presidential Office spokesman David Lee (李南陽) said that neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Presidential Office had received such a message.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry