Former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (許世楷) and former minister of foreign affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) yesterday denounced President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “one China” policy as the reason Taiwanese businesses are targeted in the anti-China violence in Vietnam.
The “one China” policy, which has Vietnamese mistakenly consider Taiwan as part of China, is what puts Taiwanese businesses operating in Vietnam at risk during anti-China riots, Chen said.
Chen said that, since the 90,000 Vietnamese migrant spouses in Taiwan clearly understand that Taiwan and China are different countries, the Ministry of the Interior should encourage them to exert their influence and to help convey the message that Taiwan is different from China back to Vietnam and that Taiwanese should not punished for problems caused by China
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Koh said that since the Ma administration has always been under the sway of China, Ma is unable to quickly react to the Vietnam violence, with the government’s countermeasures all similar to stalling strategies.
He added that he is afraid that the nation is to be lumped together with China when future negotiations about compensation for Taiwanese businesses takes place.
“It would be difficult to have compensation straightened out if we were tied with China,” Koh said.
Chen and Koh made the remarks on the sidelines of a conference in Taipei on Taiwan’s future hosted by the Taiwan New Century Foundation in commemoration of late Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮).
Former foreign ministry official Maysing Yang (楊黃美幸) also said the “one China” policy generated various problems in the international community.
If the government maintained a firm position on differentiating between Taiwan and China, Taiwanese businesses overseas would not have suffered from anti-China violence, she said.
Chen said that the Ma administration has never seriously refuted the claim that China has been repeatedly making about Taiwan’s being a part of China.
This connivance on the government’s part is responsible for the Vietnamese mistaking Taiwan as part of China, so the government is to blame for losses Taiwanese businesses are suffering in Vietnam, he added.
Koh criticized Ma’s “one China” policy as the cause of the international misunderstanding, adding that he always made clear to the Japanese government that Taiwan is an independent country when he was a representative to Japan.
Meanwhile, in related news, a pro-localization group yesterday urged the government to rectify Taiwan’s name after the attacks in the recent Vietnamese demonstrations.
“Foreign nationals easily confused the Republic of China (ROC) with ‘People’s Republic of China,’” Taiwan Association of University Professors president Lu Chung-chin (呂忠津) told a press conference in Taipei.
Citing Taiwanese accounts that the Vietnamese rioters made no distinction between Chinese and Taiwanese because most of the rioters said “Taiwan is part of China,” Lu said the incident shows the nation must quickly rectify its name to “let the international community know that Taiwan and China are two different countries.”
He added that Vietnamese textbooks teach that Taiwan is part of China, “however, regretfully, we did not see the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protest and ask Hanoi to correct the error.”
He said the ministry should hold an international press conference immediately to make clear that Taiwan and China are two different countries and therefore help assure Taiwanese businesspeople’s safety and interests in Vietnam.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its