Lives and property across the Taiwan Strait would only be protected by the inclusion of human rights clauses in the texts of the agreements between Taiwan and China, and not by lip service, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
The response was directed at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) after he said on Wednesday that he hoped cross-strait dialogue could extend beyond economic and trade issues, to encompass human rights and the rule of law.
“Human rights are the foundation of peace and people’s interests would not be protected before their human rights are protected,” said Honigmann Hong (洪財隆), director of the DPP’s China Affairs Department, in a press release.
Human rights protection should be the precondition of future cross-strait agreements and the beginning of exchanges between the civil societies of Taiwan and China, Hong said.
Otherwise, a cross-strait peace agreement, which Ma had previously hinted was one of his primary goals, would be nominal and meaningless, Hong said.
While the livelihoods of Chinese has improved after the nation’s economic rise, Beijing has not eased its oppression of human rights, evidenced by its relentless crackdown on Falun Gong followers, rights advocates, Tibetans and its tight control of the media, Hong said.
Beijing’s detention of Taiwanese Bruce Chung (鍾鼎邦) for 54 days last year was yet more evidence of China’s lack of respect of human rights, Hong said.
“Ma said human rights would be seen as the barometer to measure further cross-strait engagement. From what we’ve seen, the distance between Taiwan and China could not be farther,” Hong said.
There are many human rights-related areas the Ma administration could work on immediately, such as the inclusion of the right to appeal and safeguard mechanisms in bilateral negotiations, the establishment of an official bilateral human rights dialogue platform, a human rights watch mechanism, as well as legislation in the form of a refugee act (難民法) and a political asylum law (政治庇護法), Hong said.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but