A Beijing official made a grave mistake when he said everything is negotiable between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) if the DPP gives up on independence, pro-independence DPP politicians said yesterday.
“He had it backwards. Everything is negotiable between the two parties if China gives up the idea of unifying Taiwan,” Legislator Mark Chen (陳唐山) told a press conference.
Chen was referring to a comment made by National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲) in a recent interview with a Taiwanese media outlet.
A former foreign minister, Chen said that the key element of cross-strait engagement is reciprocity, adding that if Beijing were serious about further engaging with Taiwan, it would need to understand what is on the mind of Taiwanese and respect Taiwan’s current de facto independence.
Citing a comment made by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) during his visit to Germany that the sovereignty of Taiwan had been returned to China under the Potsdam Declaration in 1945 and the Cairo Declaration in 1943, former DPP legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said Li’s remark showed a “lack of basic knowledge of international law.”
The status of Taiwan was neither determined in Potsdam and Cairo nor in San Francisco, where the Treaty of San Francisco was signed between Japan and part of the Allied powers in 1951, because the Chinese Civil War meant that the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could not represent China at the time, Chai 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