Comments by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on cross-strait issues were “interesting” and “constructive,” and Washington looks forward to hearing more from her, a senior US official said on Monday.
US Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asia Evan Medeiros said he follows what Tsai has to say about cross-strait issues very closely.
“I thought her recent comments were quite interesting and quite constructive, and we look forward to hearing more from her about what her approach is all about,” Medeiros said during a briefing on the US visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Tsai, who is the DPP’s candidate for next year’s presidential election, has said that her party’s basic principle in handling cross-strait relations is “maintaining the status quo.”
Tsai also said she is confident of her ability to handle cross-strait ties well and would try to “avoid accidents” and would not provoke “contradictions, confrontations or conflicts.”
As in the previous presidential campaign four years ago, when she was also the DPP’s candidate, Tsai is expected to visit Washington in the run-up to the presidential election in January next year.
Regarding a planned visit to China by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Medeiros said the US supports any cross-strait interactions that are conducted at a pace and in a manner acceptable to both sides and in a way that ensures continued cross-strait stability.
He noted that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) wrote an opinion piece in the People’s Daily in which he talked about being open to interactions and conversations with all circles of Taiwanese society.
“We think that’s an important, constructive step as Taiwan enters into its election period,” Medeiros said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
RSS