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.
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
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