Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that she would not rule out visiting Beijing and meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) if she wins the Jan. 16 election.
Asked by reporters whether she would visit Beijing if invited, given the widespread public criticism of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) planned meeting with Xi in Singapore tomorrow, especially from the pan-green camp, Tsai said: “There are just over 70 days left until the election and considering the atmosphere in society, I think the possibility of my visiting Beijing is not too high, but if I am elected next year, if the conditions that I mentioned before — including openness and transparency, equality and dignity, and no politics are met — I would not rule out the possibility.”
However, Tsai took a tougher tone commenting on Ma’s press conference at the Presidential Office yesterday morning and his remark that tomorrow’s meeting would create the basis to “build a bridge” for future meetings and interactions between the leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Photo: CNA
“If Taiwan’s society and its leader do not create the necessary mechanism, and follow the necessary procedures to allow society to take part in the decisionmaking process on major decisions, allowing parliamentary supervision and having transparency of information, then even if there is a bridge, it is not a concrete and stable one,” Tsai said on the sidelines of a campaign event in Penghu County.
The public does not have a problem with cross-strait interactions and meetings of top leaders unless opaqueness becomes an issue, she said.
Later yesterday, DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said during a radio interview that the DPP would not organize a “supervisory group” to monitor Ma when he is in Singapore, as the party did in 1993 when then-Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and China’s then-Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Wang Daohan (汪道涵) held a meeting in Singapore.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS