President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that it is “not appropriate” for former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) to attend a military parade in China that is to be held to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Ma was on his way to the Taipei City Council building for a vote of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee when he was asked by journalists to comment on Lien’s trip.
Ma said the Mainland Affairs Council and the Presidential Office have already made their stances clear over the past week, by saying that “It is not appropriate [for Lien] to attend, and that is the stance of the Republic of China [ROC] government.”
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said it was unnecessary for him to repeat what various government agencies, the party and the public have said about Lien’s Beijing visit, but he has “only one thing to say, which is that the eight-year War of Resistence Against Japan was won and led by the ROC with its leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).”
If Lien insists on going, he has to “resolutely speak the truth about history so as to live up to what Taiwanese and ROC citizens expect of Lien and the government,” Wu said.
KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) was more straightforward about his disapproval.
“Forgive me for my bluntness, but I think [former KMT] chairman Lien should not go. The Chinese Communist Party wants to seize the [rights to interpret the] history concerning the eight-year resistance war by celebrating it with a military parade, and that would hurt too many people’s feelings,” he said.
Former KMT vice secretary-general Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭), who is to visit China with Lien, according to a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily, responded to criticism of the visit yesterday by saying that Lien had been carefully considering his decision to go since February, which was when Lien received the first in a series of invitations from Beijing.
Chang said that a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is a serious undertaking that cannot be canceled lightly, adding that Lien is aware of how the public feels and he is not attending for the sake of it, but to personally convey to the Chinese leadership the wishes of Taiwanese for cross-strait peace and regional stability.
When asked whether he considers attending the military parade too politically provocative, Chang was reported as saying that the parade was about peace and that officials from between 40 and 50 other nations are attending, and they surely have no interest in supporting China’s militarism.
Chang told the Chinese-language United Daily News on Friday that Lien plans to respond positively to Xi’s call for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to “make use of historical materials together and write history books together.”
“If there is an absence of cross-strait communication and common research and both sides hold to their respective narratives, a consensus is impossible,” Chang was quoted as saying.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues