The DPP yesterday sought to downplay President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) call on Saturday for a referendum on the nation's future, saying that Chen's comments had been "over-interpreted" by the media.
"The referendum would be to defend the current status of Taiwan, not to change its current status. Unfortunately, [Chen's comments] were widely misinterpreted as calling for a change to the current status," DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said at a press conference yesterday evening.
Chen told a Tokyo meeting of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations via satellite video broadcast that there is "one country on either side" (of the Taiwan Strait) and that the nation should seriously consider passing referendum legislation so that a vote on Taiwan's future could be held.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (
"Many international media organizations interpreted President Chen's remarks as heading toward a path of independence, but I think they were over-interpreted," he said.
Chen's comments were widely considered his toughest to date on cross-strait affairs.
As to the issue of referendum legislation, Wang cautioned that the matter is highly contentious.
"Referendum legislation is a controversial issue between political parties and its implementation might lead to the unsteadiness of Taiwan's politics. I would remind my colleagues of the risks we would be undertaking if they propose the idea to the Legislative Yuan," Wang said.
Executive Director of the DPP's Policy Research and Coordinating Committee Lin Cho-shui (
"Beijing has said that it would separate economic issues from political ones and that it would attempt to discuss insensitive issues before sensitive ones. But it hasn't done anything to implement such ideas over the past two years," Lin said.
"After Beijing's series of provocative actions, it's about time for us to be tough on Beijing. We have to make Beijing understand reality clearly and not to have any unpractical expectations of Taiwan," he said.
Some academics, however, worried Chen might have gone too far this time.
"President Chen created a lot of space for cross-strait relations with his `five no's' policy. The new remarks, however, show his bottom line. What else can Chen say to scare Beijing next time?" said Wu Yu-shan (
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS