French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot has cancelled a visit to Taiwan citing "diary commitments," the ministry said yesterday, denying any link with French cabinet scandals which may involve weapons sales to Taiwan.
Gayssot had been due to arrive this evening to lobby for the sale of a high-speed rail system from the European consortium named Eurotrain.
A report Friday said Gayssot had been scheduled to meet President Lee Teng-hui (
The paper said the trip was canceled shortly after a French-Taiwanese association was cited in a corruption probe that has embarrassed France's ruling Socialists and caused the resignation of finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
"We've been informed Thursday morning that the minister is not coming," said an official based in Taiwan. "But we were not given the reason," he said on condition of anonymity.
Apparently trying to avoid the sensitive issue, Taiwan's foreign ministry spokesman Henry Chen said: "I didn't even know he had planned to come."
Eurotrain, formed by France's Alstom Group and Germany's Siemens Group, is battling the Shinkansen group of Japan for a NT$80 billion contract to supply train carriages and locomotives for Taiwan's high-speed rail system.
According to French news reports, magistrates investigating a scandal-ridden student health-care fund, the MNEF, are trying to determine whether there is a link between it and an association called France-Taiwan, which may have served as a cover to help push for deals involving weapons sales to Taiwan.
Strauss-Kahn stepped down Tuesday over allegations he was paid 603,000 francs in 1997 for legal work he never performed for the MNEF, and that as minister he may have known of forged documents drawn up to hide the transaction.
In 1991, when the association was created, the French oil giant Elf-Aquitaine was pushing for the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in the face of strong opposition from China.
That affair led to a corruption probe against former Socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas and his ex-mistress Christine Deviers-Joncour, who were allegedly involved in the 1991 sale of six frigates.
The probe forced Dumas to step down last March from his post as head of France's Constitutional Council, where he was the fifth-ranking official in the state hierarchy.
The daily Liberation said several people who served as intermediaries to help push for the frigate and Mirage sales were involved with the MNEF.
In 1992, Paris struck a US$3.8 billion deal with Taipei to sell it 60 Mirage 2000-5 jets again following determined opposition from Beijing.
The Mach 2.2-capable Mirage was especially sought by Taiwan because of its superior performance and armament when compared with the Russian Su-27 jets with which China started rearming its poorly equipped air force earlier this decade.
Taiwan took delivery of the last batch of the Mirage fighters in October last year.
The arms sale caused a serious rift between Paris and Beijing, and China ordered the closure of the French consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou. The consulate was officially reopened in 1997.
France and China reached an agreement in 1994 under which France guaranteed to stop arming Taiwan.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS