Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday accused leaders of the main opposition parties of tainting Taiwan’s international image and undermining Taiwan-US ties by airing erroneous messages to the world about events in Afghanistan.
Comparisons of the Afghan government’s military defeat to China’s planned annexation of Taiwan have mainly come from top officials in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as candidates campaign for the party’s chairperson election next month, said DPP Legislator Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳), director of the DPP caucus.
“For the sake of scoring political points for their candidate in the party’s chairperson race, KMT officials are willing to sacrifice Taiwan’s national interests by trying to draw parallels between Taiwan and Afghanistan,” Liu told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
Screen grab by Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
After Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday, taking control of the Afghan capital, former KMT and New Party legislator Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) wrote on social media: “Events in Afghanistan could likely happen in Taiwan,” and “It’s foolish for the DPP government to tell Taiwanese that the US will come to save us [from China].”
The US sacrificed the Afghan government by negotiating for peace and withdrawing its troops, said Jaw, who is chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China.
“The US is not a dependable ally,” he wrote. “Taiwan must choose between peace and war, if it does not want to become another Afghanistan.”
“It is wrong to get so close to the US,” Jaw added. “People do not know the grave danger that will befall Taiwan soon.”
KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) told reporters: “We are quite familiar with scenes of the US withdrawing its troops... In the 1970s, the US shifted to play the China card to contain the Soviet Union, so the US military left Taiwan. It led to much anger here, with feelings of uncertainty and apprehension regarding Taiwan’s future.”
On Tuesday, former KMT chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), who is making a second run for the position, posted: “Of course I don’t want Taiwan to become an Afghanistan, and Taiwan must depend on itself, and not rely on any other country.”
Responding to comments that the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan resembles the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949, Chu wrote: “If the KMT did not do so in 1949, then we would not have the Taiwan of today.”
Separately on Tuesday, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) wrote that history has repeated itself with the US’ frantic evacuation from Kabul just as it fled from the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon in April 1975.
“After 20 years, the US just wipes its ass and walks away,” Wang wrote. “It left chaos and the Afghan people in a very dire situation... This is not the first time that the US has abandoned an ally.”
Wang accused the US of only paying lip service to “liberty, freedom and human rights.”
Yesterday, DPP legislative caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said: “These KMT comments have been quoted around the international community, even giving the world the erroneous impression that these are mainstream views in Taiwan.”
Lo said that the KMT “failed to explain that the Taiwan of today is very different from the one-party authoritarian regime of the past.”
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
‘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
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
RSS