Government officials and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday rushed to slam Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for calling the Republic of China (ROC) a government-in-exile while the DPP defended Tsai, saying her remark was taken out of context.
Tsai on Tuesday suggested in a speech at a book launch that from Taiwan’s perspective, the ROC government was a Chinese authoritarian government that had dominated Taiwanese politics for the last six decades. However, she also said that in the past few decades, with the rise of Taiwan’s democracy movement and replacement of Chinese interests with Taiwanese interests, the ROC government had become both legitimate and sovereign.
The KMT-led government, however, reacted strongly.
“Tsai’s comments belittled national dignity. It was a serious blunder that reflected self-denial and an opposition party of a democratic country should not hold such a stance,” Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said.
Lo accused Tsai of attracting support from extremists in the pan-green camp through rhetoric.
He also urged her not to manipulate the issue of national identity for campaign purposes, ahead of the November special muncipality elections.
“It was the first time Chairperson Tsai gave her stance on the status of the ROC. We are sorry that she chose to attract the support of deep-green supporters,” he said.
The term “government in exile” refers to a temporary organization with no authority to rule the country, Lo said, while the ROC government has enjoyed the authority to reign over Taiwan.
The “Resolution on Taiwan’s Future,” proclaimed by the DPP in 1999, also acknowledged Taiwan’s title as “ROC” in the Constitution, Lo said, adding Tsai’s comments were clearly contrary to reality.
“Did the former DPP government rule the country illegally for the past eight years? Does Tsai, as the DPP’s candidate in Sinbei City, decide to abandon her moderate approach?” Lo said.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said Tsai’s remark was “shocking,” and she should know what an exiled government means.
“She was once the ROC’s vice premier and Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman. Was she on the payroll of a government in exile?” Wu said.
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said some academics used to refer to the ROC government as a “government in exile,” but the official view is the “ROC government is the ROC government.”
KMT lawmakers questioned whether Tsai was crazy.
“When I first heard the remark, I thought it came from [former president] Chen Shui-bian [陳水扁]. [Did she make the remark] because she was possessed by Chen?” KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) said.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said the ROC would never be an exiled government because it has all the characteristics of an independent nation.
KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) urged Tsai to apologize for her blunder.
Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), director of the DPP’s Department of International Affairs, yesterday downplayed Tsai’s remarks, saying they were taken out of context.
Tsai was referring to historical events instead of the ROC’s current status, Hsiao added.
On what Tsai originally meant by her comments, Hsiao said: “The ROC did come to Taiwan as a government-in-exile in 1949, but in the last 60 years through our pursuit for and subsequent exercise of democracy … we can proudly say that Taiwan is a sovereign country. The [government] took Tsai’s remarks out of context and completely distorted the meaning.”
Standing behind Tsai’s comments, DPP caucus whip Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said that, based on the Treaty of San Francisco, Taiwan’s status has remained undetermined in the post-World War II period.
“It’s correct to say that the [ROC] government was at the time a government-in-exile, the KMT had no basis for governing Taiwan [following the war],” Chai said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG, LOA IOK-SIN AND CNA
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘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