Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) — which manages relations with Taiwan — slammed President William Lai’s (賴清德) inaugural speech yesterday as sending a “dangerous signal.” China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.
TAO spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said Lai’s remarks “wantonly advocated separatism, incited cross-strait confrontation and sought independence by relying on foreign support and by force.”
He said Lai ignored Taiwan’s “mainstream public aspiration... for peace and development.”
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Separately, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said Taiwan’s internal politics did not change the “fact” it was part of China, calling efforts toward its independence “dangerous” after Lai was sworn in.
Speaking in Astana, Kazakhstan, at a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers, Wang said “Taiwan independence efforts” represented “the most serious challenge to the international order.”
They were, he said, “the most dangerous change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and the most significant disruption of peace in the Taiwan Strait,” a readout of his comments from the Chinese foreign ministry said.
“There is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is part of China,” he said, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rebutted later yesterday.
As Lai took office, Beijing imposed sanctions on three US defense companies over their sales of weapons to Taipei.
Although the US formally recognizes Beijing, it is Taipei’s main partner and supplier of arms.
The move is the latest in a series of sanctions Beijing has announced in recent years against defense companies for weapons sales to Taiwan.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce placed Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security unit, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems, on what is called an “unreliable entities” list, forbidding their further investment in China, in addition to travel bans on senior management of the companies.
Meanwhile, Chinese social media Sino Weibo yesterday blocked hashtags referencing Lai’s inauguration.
A hashtag saying “Taiwan 520 new authorities take office,” referring to yesterday’s date, was removed, with a notice saying that “according to relevant laws, regulations, and policies, the content of this topic has not been displayed.”
Another that said “Lai Ching-te [Lai’s Chinese name] takes office” was also taken down while hashtags featuring Lai’s name and that of outgoing Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) were unavailable.
However, search results for Lai’s name and other topics still yielded results.
Sino Weibo often blocks hashtags deemed politically sensitive to prevent them from trending on the platform, used by hundreds of millions in China.
During the presidential election in January, the platform blocked a hashtag on the poll after it became one of the site’s top-trending topics.
There has been scant mention of Lai’s inauguration in China’s state-run media.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS