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.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS