President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wants to change the common practice in Taiwan of calling the other side of the Taiwan Strait “China” in favor of the term “the mainland,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said yesterday.
Hsieh, the secretary-general of the KMT caucus, said Ma made the suggestion at a tea party with leading government and legislative officials yesterday.
Hsieh quoted Ma as saying that under the principle of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” — the so-called “1992 consensus” which the KMT believes was reached during cross-strait talks in Hong Kong in 1992 — Taiwan should not refer to China by its name, but should instead call it “the mainland” or simply “the other side.”
The KMT defines the “1992 consensus” as an agreement according to which it interprets “one China” as the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, while Beijing defines it as the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The ROC was founded in 1912 in China, but relocated to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese communists.
The practice in Taiwan of calling the other side of the Strait “China” was started during the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) eight years in power from 2000 to 2008, as part of a policy to emphasize Taiwan’s existence as separate from that of China.
According to Hsieh, Ma asked government officials yesterday to be more cautious when referring to China, either verbally or in written documents.
The DPP says the “1992 consensus” does not exist.
In 2006, then-KMT legislator Su Chi (蘇起) admitted he made up the term in 2000, when he was head of the Mainland Affairs Council, before the KMT handed over power to the DPP. Su said he coined the term to encourage both sides to keep up cross-strait exchanges.
At the closed-door spring tea party at the National Defense University, Ma also urged officials to be “on alert at all times” and to place wealth distribution high on their policy agenda.
Ma addressed a wide range of issues, among them economics, flood control, cross-strait development and public communication.
The government’s task in the coming year is not only to maintain the economic recovery, which was felt by the public last year, but also improve the distribution of wealth, the president said.
The development of cross-strait relations since his inauguration, including 15 agreements signed between Taiwan and China, has been rapid “because the stagnancy of bilateral relations during the previous administration jeopardized the interests of the people of Taiwan,” Ma was quoted as saying.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS