Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) yesterday denied that China had played a role in her cancelation of a speech scheduled for Saturday in Los Angeles after she urged Beijing to abolish policies and laws concerning military deployments targeting Taiwan.
Lai, who returned to Taipei from the US yesterday morning, said she canceled the last leg of her trip because her plane had mechanical problems, adding that it had nothing to do with China.
The last-minute change of plan prompted speculation that China had pressured her to cancel the speech after she called on Beijing to repeal its “Anti-Secession” Law, which authorizes the Chinese military to take Taiwan via “non-peaceful” means if Taiwan makes moves toward de jure independence.
“This speculation is purely groundless,” she told reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday.
Lai said she tried for six or seven hours to get another flight to Los Angeles, but to no avail. Describing the incident as “an act of God,” Lai said she had no other choice but to cancel her flight.
While giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on Wednesday, Lai urged Beijing to abolish “policies and laws” concerning military deployments targeting Taiwan. She said China’s military buildup and its “policy of taking Taiwan by force” were obstacles that must be removed if cross-strait relations are to move forward.
While Lai stopped short of naming the “Anti-Secession” Law in her speech, MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) in Taipei on Thursday called on China to review its “Anti-Secession” Law, which he described as “something unnecessary” in cross-strait relations. He also said the law was impeding the development of ties between Taipei and Beijing and that there was a need to review it after the two sides build a communication platform and develop mutual trust.
Lai yesterday said she had made good use of her limited time in the US to meet government officials, think tanks, academics and lawmakers. During the meetings, Lai said they recognized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s “benign interactions” with Beijing.
After explaining to them what the recently signed cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was, Lai said they all fully supported it. Lai added that they thought the accord was something encouraging for the US and that it would play an important role in Taiwan’s attempt to be part of regional economic integration and develop closer economic relations with its major trading partners.
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,
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
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