Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) vituperative attacks on him over an interview he gave to a Japanese magazine were baseless and were an attempt to win votes.
Over the past few days, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and other KMT and pan-blue politicians have criticized Lee over remarks he made during an interview with the Japanese magazine Voice, when he said that Taiwan did not fight a war of resistance against Japan during the Japanese colonial era, and that many Taiwanese joined the Japanese Imperial Army at that time to fight for their motherland, which they thought of as Imperial Japan.
“Politicians should always tell people the truth,” Lee said, before he walked into a fund-raising dinner for the Lee Teng-hui Foundation in Taipei, in response to media requests for comment on the KMT’s accusations.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“There was no ‘War of Resistance Against Japan’ in Taiwan, because at that time, Taiwan belonged to Japan, so there was no such thing, you can ask anyone who is over 70 years old in Taiwan about it.”
“The KMT was fighting the war of resistance against Japan in China, and tried to relate it to Taiwan, but it is just not something that happened in Taiwan,” he said.
Lee said he was born in 1923, during the Japanese colonial era, and also served in the Japanese Imperial Army, as did between 100,000 and 200,000 other Taiwanese men, “and we were in the military to fight for Japan.”
He then attacked the KMT for what he said was an intentional attempt to confuse the public to win votes.
“Because they are not confident about the elections, they are making things up to try and humiliate me, and saying that I am too old to think clearly. Well, I am old, but I can still think very clearly,” he said.
Asked to respond to Ma’s call for him to apologize for his remarks, Lee said it is nonsense that someone who tells the truth should apologize, adding that Ma should focus his energy on coming up with policy ideas that might benefit the nation.
“He should compare how well things were during the 12 years when I was in power with how things are today,” Lee said. “It is more important [for a president] to exercise good governance, after all.”
As for KMT lawmakers’ call to cancel his privileges as a retired president, Lee said it is up to the legislature to make the decision, and he does not think the majority of lawmakers would agree with the move.
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