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.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial