President Chen Shui-bian's (
"We'd like to make it clear to the public and the international community that the president has been making good on his `five noes' promise over the past four years," Presidential Office Spokesman James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday.
The president's plan to rewrite the Constitution is designed to strengthen democracy, he said, adding that it will not change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
"The president has made it clear on various occasions that the new constitution is part of the nation's democratization process, not a timetable for independence," Huang said.
"The constitutional reform will proceed under the premise of maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait," he said. "Our resolve to establish a peace and stability framework for cross-strait interaction hasn't changed."
Huang made the remarks in response to a warning by US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly at the US House of Representatives on Wednesday that Taiwan should not go too far in rewriting the constitution.
While pro-independence Chinese-language newspapers emphasized Kelly's praise for Taiwan's vibrant democracy, pro-unification media underscored the US government's opposition to Taiwan independence.
Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
"We will not allow China to unilaterally interpret cross-strait relations or the `one China' policy," Lin said.
Responding to the US House of Representatives' resolution to support Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization as an observer, Lin said that he was confident Taiwan stands a greater chance of joining the organization this year thanks to the US government's backing.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
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