Foreign lawmakers meeting in Taipei yesterday urged China to stop militarily threatening Taiwan and to find a peaceful resolution to rivalry across the Taiwan Strait.
Lawmakers attending a conference on Asia-Pacific security issued a joint statement after a day of debates saying that the situation in the Taiwan Strait continued to be a matter of serious concern.
"They urged the People's Republic of China to work with Taiwan in the spirit of peace and harmony and to refrain from the threat and use of military force," DPP Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮), in his capacity as one of the co-hosts of the International Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Asian Pacific Security, read from the statement.
The conference also recommended that "the future of Taiwan should be resolved through negotiation and peaceful means in a way that is acceptable to the people of Taiwan," said Chai, who is also president of the ROC (Taiwan)-USA Inter-Parliamentary Amity Association (RIAA).
"Measures to promote peace in the Taiwan Strait should be further explored and encouraged," he said.
On the issue of terrorism, the conference recommended that the escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula should be "resolved through peaceful means," while urging North Korea to "agree to the verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs."
Although the participants agreed in general that the international coalition on combating terrorist threats around the world should be strengthened, they remained split on how to reach that objective.
A session on the issue of anti-terrorism, for instance, saw Malaysian lawmaker Kok Wai Tan argue that the UN, not the US, should take the lead in the world's joint efforts in combating global terrorism.
He also urged Asian nations to "collectively reject the Bush doctrine of unilateralist moves" in world affairs.
John Mckay, a member of the Canadian House of Commons, urged the US administration to forge partnerships with multilateral organizations as a key element of its diplomacy.
Disagreement over the joint statement was resolved at the last minute when an Indian lawmaker succeeded in including the "terrorist attacks against the Indian Parliament in 2001 and continued terrorist bombings in Kashmir."
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