Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) yesterday paid homage to Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), the founding father of the Republic of China (ROC), in a visit to Sun’s mausoleum in the Chinese city of Nanjing and mentioned the ROC in his remarks despite Chinese officials and media playing down the comments.
Wang yesterday became the first ROC official to visit the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in his official capacity, on the second day of his four-day visit to China.
On Tuesday, Wang and his Chinese counterpart, Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), held the first meeting between Taiwanese and Chinese ministers since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) fled to Taiwan following its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War.
Photo:AFP
“It has been 103 years since Sun Yat-sen founded the ROC, the first democracy in Asia. We could in the past only pay tribute to the founding father in Taipei, but I am able to visit here today in my capacity as MAC minister,” Wang told reporters and the crowd in the Boai Plaza in front of the mausoleum.
Several Taiwanese pan-blue camp politicians had visited the mausoleum in the past in non-governmental capacities, including former Straits Exchange Foundation president Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), former KMT chairmen Lien Chan (連戰) and Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).
Taiwan Affairs Office officials were not accompanying Wang when he made the remarks.
In an eulogy Wang recited in front of Sun’s grave earlier, he mentioned Sun’s Three Principles of the People, the five-power Constitution and the so-called “1992 consensus,” also noting that people on both sides of the strait belong to the “Zhonghua” (中華) culture and it was imperative to “face reality.”
Responding to media inquiries about Wang’s remarks, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) only praised Sun as “a great pioneer of China’s democratic revolution” without elaborating on Wang’s comments, according to China’s state-owned China News Service.
Chinese media, including the state mouthpieces CCTV and the Xinhua news agency, omitted Wang’s remarks about the ROC and the call for “facing reality” in their coverage.
Later yesterday, Wang delivered a speech to Nanjing University students, calling for closer youth exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and “peaceful coexistence.”
Wang’s visit to China so far has drawn mixed responses from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday that while Wang and Zhang’s addressing each other using their official titles was “a small step for progress,” Wang’s failure to address human rights and the ROC in front of Zhang was lamentable.
In a press release issued late on Tuesday night, the DPP’s Department of China Affairs director Honigmann Hong (洪財隆) described the meeting as a “quasi-political negotiation” without authorization from Taiwanese.
Hong added that the nominal meeting had failed to reach substantial consensus on the issues of press freedom, human rights, investment protection and joint crime-fighting, among others.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said in a press release that Wang’s remarks about the ROC were only “self-amusement” because there was no Chinese official present and the Chinese media would not report about it.
Wang is due to attend a forum and hold talks with Chinese think tanks today before wrapping up his trip and returning to Taipei tomorrow.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at