Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) told Japan yesterday that while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration sought to improve relations with Beijing, it continued to attach great importance to relations with Tokyo and Washington.
Chiang, who led a six-member KMT delegation to Japan on Monday for a three-day visit, made the remarks while delivering a speech before some 200 Japanese political and business representatives and reporters in Tokyo yesterday.
Chiang, a vice chairman of the KMT, said the KMT administration’s cross-strait policy was to create a win-win situation for the economies on both sides and pursue peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The international strategy was to support the US-Japan security treaty, maintain friendly relations with Japan and the US and contribute to prosperity and security in Asia, he said.
Chiang said the KMT administration’s goal in cross-strait relations was to ink an agreement on economic cooperation with Beijing, with the long-term goal of establishing a common market. The KMT government was also amenable to signing free-trade agreements with the US, Japan and ASEAN countries, he said.
Referring to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “three noes” — no unification, no declaration of independence and no use of military force — and pursuit of peace and security based on the so-called “1992 consensus,” Chiang told the audience that, under such a framework, the Ma administration would like to establish a military confidence-building mechanism with Beijing, end the arms buildup on both sides of the Strait, sign a peace treaty and build sustainable peace in the Strait.
In Taipei, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said he expected designated representative to Tokyo John Feng (馮寄台) to deal skillfully in negotiations over fishing rights with Japan and help improve Taipei-Tokyo ties.
During a visit by Feng to the Legislative Yuan, Wang said Ma’s appointment of Feng, a longtime Ma aide, meant that Ma took the nation’s ties with Japan very seriously.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Feng’s appointment last Tuesday night, nearly 40 days after the seat was left vacant by Koh Sei-kai (許世楷), who resigned in June.
Feng, a KMT member, has served as ambassador to the Dominican Republic and as the ministry’s chief of protocol. He was also director of international affairs during Ma’s presidential campaign.
Feng vowed yesterday to promote relations with Japan based on the achievements of his predecessors.
“Relations between Taiwan and Japan have grown stably over the past eight years. My predecessors Lo [Fu-chen (羅福全)] and Ko made very impressive achievements and I will spare no effort [to promote relations between Taipei and Tokyo] based on those achievements,” he said.
Asked about his priorities after his assumes office, Feng said he would rather not discuss them, as “many things are better left unsaid in diplomacy.”
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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