President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday instructed the government to bolster self-defense capabilities, improve relations with the US across party lines, and stabilize economic and social order.
The directives were issued at a National Security Council meeting, which was held earlier yesterday amid an increasing number of incursions by Chinese military planes and ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election.
In anticipation of the Chinese Communist Party’s fifth plenum this week and the US presidential election, Tsai last month had also instructed the council to form a task force to increase intelligence gathering on possible scenarios, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday afternoon.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
During the meeting, Tsai said the nation should further modernize its defense capabilities, upgrade its asymmetric combat capabilities, promote indigenous arms development and reform its reserve forces to brace for Beijing’s military expansion and aggression, Chang quoted Tsai as saying.
Taiwan has garnered support from the majority of people and bipartisan politicians in the US, Tsai said, adding that the progress of Taiwan-US relations is obvious to Taiwanese.
She also instructed the council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US to work to maintain the support of the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party.
Tsai also asked government agencies to follow Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) instructions to improve cooperation with suppliers in key industries, make the Taiwan-US Economic and Commercial Dialogue happen, start talks over a bilateral trade agreement and resume negotiations with the US regarding the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
Taiwan-US meetings about the TIFA have been suspended since 2017.
The Cabinet should take advantage of the Taiwan-US framework for strengthening basic infrastructure financing and market-building cooperation signed in September to promote supply chain cooperation in New Southbound Policy countries as well as Central and South American countries, Tsai was quoted by Chang as saying at the council meeting.
She also asked economic and financial agencies to closely monitor global economic changes after the US election, boost relief aid to industries hit hard by COVID-19 and implement major investment and infrastructure development projects.
Tsai said that stabilizing cross-strait relations is a shared interest of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The two sides should discuss how to peacefully coexist based on mutual respect and understanding, she said, adding that Taiwan is willing to foster a meaningful conversation based on parity and dignity.
Hopefully, Beijing will help make such a conversation happen soon, she said.
Tsai also asked the Coast Guard Administration and police agencies to maintain social order, prevent the spread of misinformation and improve infrastructure security protection to safeguard the nation’s democracy and freedom.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
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