Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday reiterated that the “one country, two areas” proposal was President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inaccurate interpretation of Taiwan’s history and its decades-long democratic development.
“The proposal was a reaction against democracy and a sign of the re-emergence of authoritarianism,” Lee said in Donggang Township (東港), Pingtung County, on the first day of his three-day visit to southern Taiwan.
The controversial proposal, which was put forward by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) during his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on March 22 in Beijing, inaccurately implied that Taiwan and China are two administrative areas of the same country, Lee said.
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
While Ma cited an amendment of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) as the legal basis of his initiative, Lee said Ma got the history wrong.
Since the temporary provisions effective during the period of mobilization for the suppression of the Communist rebellion (動員戡亂時期臨時條款) ceased to function on May 1, 1991, Taiwan and China have been considered as “two political entities,” Lee said.
The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area was only a domestic law to deal with cross-strait exchanges, he added.
The 88-year-old Lee said it was “not right” that Wu, who served as secretary-general of the Presidential Office under him, spoke as he did and that Ma had been “pathetic” in irresponsibly submitting the proposal.
Lee spoke for 30 minutes on modern Taiwan history since 1895, saying it was crucial to understand history before making deliberations on cross-strait policies and “a large part of Taiwan history has been misinterpreted.”
He said he believed he was the best person to address the issue, because “there was no cross-strait policy before me” since former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) both refused to recognize the existence of the People’s Republic of China and initiate contacts.
On the issue of recent fuel and electricity price hikes, Lee said it was inappropriate for him to criticize the president on this issue.
However, Lee said he would have put in more thought and policy deliberation before making such decisions.
“It’s not a good thing if [Ma] thinks he can do whatever he wants since he won his second term. A leader should never cheat his people,” Lee said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the