Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of incompetency, lashing out at his administration for failing to offer concrete measures to curb public apprehension over events such as the recent melamine contamination and the poor performance of the TAIEX.
Lee said that when the Democratic Progressive Party took power in 2000 it didn’t know how to govern Taiwan and the people had suffered as a consequence.
He then said that since Ma took office he had proved incompetent in everything he has done and again the people were suffering.
Lee made the remarks in a speech delivered at a world congress of The Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association Formosa held in Taipei yesterday.
Saying that the government should understand people’s safety is more important than anything, Lee said the government should condemn China and demand an apology since raw materials and products imported from China were found to have contained harmful levels of melamine.
Lee said Ma had not dared to condemn China and his silence had led to Taiwan being perceived in a negative light.
POOR PERFORMANCE
Noting the poor recent performance of the TAIEX, Lee went on to criticize Ma for neglecting the suffering of the public, saying the government appears at lost in dealing with the stock market slump.
“Taiwan is now faced with internal and external crises,” he said. “Under the leadership of the current government, Taiwan appears lost, like it is walking in fog and doesn’t know which way to go.”
Alluding to Ma’s definition of cross-strait relations made in an interview with the Mexican newspaper Sol de Mexico in August when he said that they were not between two countries, but a type of special relationship across the Taiwan Strait,” Lee accused the government of trying to do away with Taiwan’s sovereignty.
INTERNATIONAL ISSUE
Saying that the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty was an international one, Lee said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Community Party must not be allowed to decide among themselves on how Taiwan’s status should be changed in talks behind closed doors.
Lee also slammed former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
“Not long ago there came the news that a politician had wired money overseas,” Lee said, in an obvious reference to Chen’s money-laundering case.
“While it remains to be seen following the judicial investigation whether any irregularities have occurred, [the allegation] exposes how people can be corrupted in the middle of taking part in democratization and how some supporters can’t tell right from wrong but keep covering up [for politicians],” Lee said.
It is frightening when democratizers become corrupted and “love Taiwan” becomes a mere slogan, he said.
Also See: ‘Happy Mobs’ seek safety in numbers
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS