President Chen Shui-bian (
"My most important two missions for March 20 are to win the presidential election and to hold the referendum, and if I had to choose between the two, I would choose the referendum," Chen said at a party to publicize the release of his latest book.
"If I am not able to achieve these two missions simultaneously, the referendum is absolutely my priority because it is my promise to the people, to the nation," he said.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"My most important concern about the presidential election is not whether I can win a second term, but what I can achieve to give to the nation and to history," Chen said, adding that holding the referendum and establishing a new constitution are now not only ideas of his, but also matters of faith to him.
The new book, titled Believe in Taiwan -- President A-bian's Report to the People (
In the second chapter of Chen's new book, headed "International Diplomacy," he discusses issues concerning his plan for a "defensive referendum," which he has pledged to hold on March 20, the day of the presidential election. He also elaborates on his appeal for a new constitution to be ratified in 2006.
Talking about current tensions between Taiwan and the US over Chen's insistence on holding the referendum, Chen said that communication between the two countries was based on "whether Taiwan has violated the `five noes,'" but he stressed that a pre-condition was that "China must renounce the use of military force against Taiwan."
"The international community can not ask Taiwan to abide unilaterally by the `five noes' and just ignore China's intention to use military force against Taiwan and the actions it takes to enable it to do so," Chen said.
Chen says in the book that he can understand the US government's concerns about maintaining its national, political and even, he said, "election campaign" interests. As a democratic country just like the US, Chen said, Taiwan must appreciate those concerns.
"We will consider the concerns of the US, Japan and the European Union when deciding on the content and wording of the referendum," Chen says in the book. "But we will neither give up our own national interests nor allow the international community to take the threats of China's missiles targeting Taiwan for granted."
He said in the book that even though Taiwan has a firm friendship with the US, it still needs to develop "normal space" to survive in the international community and allow all of its people to live in freedom and dignity.
"So, if my bid to win re-election is affected by the push for a referendum and a new constitution -- even if it leads to my losing the election -- I will accept it willingly," he says.
Focusing on this strong statement, the media asked the president to elaborate, and Chen reaffirmed that he wished to shoulder full responsibility for continuing to democratize the nation, which he reasserted has nothing to do with declaring independence and certainly would not violate the "five noes."
"On the road to democracy in Taiwan there remain only two things to be accomplished; one is the referendum and the other is a new constitution.," Chen said.
"I hope to accomplish at least one of those two missions in my first term," he said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS