Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) applied to visit Beijing on Aug. 4 as the first volleys of China’s live-fire exercises splashed into waters around Taiwan, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said yesterday.
The KMT’s application to make contact with Chinese officials in Beijing was received by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on the first day of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) live-fire drills, Huang told a Yahoo TV online talk show (齊有此理) in a segment that aired yesterday.
MAC officials do not know whether the KMT arranged the trip before China announced the drills or was pressed into making it, he said, adding that officials advised the party that its timing was poor.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
“It was felt that [the trip] would send the wrong signal to the international community when we should be standing together in solidarity to show our determination to defend the country,” he said.
Asked to explain why US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not initially include Taiwan as a stop in her Asia tour, Huang said that Taiwan had been part of her itinerary before China threatened to shoot down her plane if she visited.
Washington did not disclose Pelosi’s plans to visit Taiwan until the last moment to help ensure her safety, he said.
Former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋), the party’s Chiayi City mayoral candidate, said on the show that Pelosi had told him when he was in San Francisco in January that she would visit Taiwan this year.
Pelosi told him that she must show her support for free and democratic Taiwan before the US midterm elections in November, which could be her last in a long political career, Lee said.
Huang said that Pelosi’s visit was only a pretext for Bejing and that its drills were part of China’s long-term strategy to tighten its grip on the first island chain.
The PLA has steadily ratcheted up the intensity and frequency of its sea and air drills since April, he said, citing as an example a mission in June that circled Japan.
Beijing likely planned its latest drills as a prelude to further displays of military power, such as missile tests in the Pacific beyond the first island chain, he said, adding that these were planned regardless of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
As eight basketball-playing international students appealed to the Taiwanese basketball industry after they were excluded from the draft of an upcoming new league merging the P.League+ and the T1 League, the new league’s preparatory committee spokesperson Chang Shu-jen (張樹人) yesterday said the committee would tomorrow discuss the supplementary measures and whether the international students can join the draft. The students on Tuesday called for support on their right to play in the upcoming new league, after a merger involving the two leagues impacted their eligibility for the draft. The international players from the University Basketball Association (UBA), led by first pick prospect
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,
Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said. The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. “Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify