Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) sparked controversy by sharing an article that said Taiwan has to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to complete its “historic mission” of unification.
“It marked the end of the Republic of China [ROC] when the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] assumed leadership of the ROC. Taiwan has to be united [with China] by the CCP to complete its historic mission,” media personality Liu Yi-hung (劉益宏) wrote in an article, which was posted by Tsai on Sina Weibo, the largest Chinese microblogging Web site.
Liu published the article on Facebook on Friday, saying: “The KMT and CCP are vying for the right to represent China, and both support the ‘one China’ principle. The ROC and People’s Republic of China [PRC] are in fact two nations fighting against each other for the sake of one [Chinese] nation, which can only be accomplished when either the ROC or the PRC is eliminated.”
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
“The PRC represents China, and Taiwan can only be a part of China, while the ROC in Taiwan comes to an end when it is under the DPP’s rule,” the article said.
“The idea of Taiwanese independence has spread and the CCP has to shoulder its historic responsibility [to unite Taiwan with China],” it added. “Politicians, especially Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), have to make the decision at this critical moment.”
Several Taiwanese critized Tsai for sharing the article, which they said was welcoming a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Saying that political leaders across party lines were working to eliminate discrimination and hatred amid the recent controversy surrounding discriminatory remarks by self-styled citizen journalist Hung Su-chu (洪素珠) against an elderly waishengren (外省人, Mainlander) — a term referring to people who fled to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949 after its defeat in the Chinese Civil War — DPP spokesman Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said Tsai, in his capacity as a KMT official, was acting inappropriately by sharing an article that seemingly welcomed a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan.
“Is KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) behind Tsai’s move? Is the opinion of the leader of a KMT committee also the KMT’s policy?” Wang asked in a Facebook post.
To put the KMT on track, Hung Hsiu-chu should oversee the conduct of party members and ask Tsai to remove the article, deliver a public apology and promise not to make the same mistake again, Wang said.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS