Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday followed up on his recent comments about President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) cross-strait policy by reiterating his position on ending the “status quo” with China, saying that “Taiwanese understand that the nation has to walk its own path without fear.”
The statements came in the wake of his recent interview with Japan’s Sankei Shimbun, in which Lee attributed Tsai’s fall in popularity polls to her stance on maintaining the so-called “status quo” in relations with China, which Lee said is a deviation from popular sentiment.
“Taiwan is Taiwan, how can it maintain the ‘status quo’ with China? Taiwanese are opposed to that,” Lee said on the sidelines of an event in Taipei.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏), who also attended the event, said that 70 years ago there were only three independent nations in Asia and the rest were colonies, whereas today there are more than 20 sovereign nations in the region.
“Only Taiwan’s sovereignty is unclear,” Koo said.
If Tsai wants to talk about “maintaining the ‘status quo,’ then she should lay out a plan for the future,” Koo said, adding that failure to do so would be irresponsible.
As for his comments made in the same interview with the Sankei Shimbun, in which he said Tsai lacks courage and decisiveness, Lee said he was not criticizing her, but rather encouraging her to work harder.
Lee said that many problems remain unsolved, citing the lapses in Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) internal management and controls exposed by the New York State Department of Financial Services’ announcement in August and a US$180 million fine of the bank’s New York branch for breaches of the US Bank Secrecy Act, pension reform disputes, labor disputes and the recent dissolution of TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空).
Lee said problems such as those with TransAsia and Mega Bank are due to the handling of banking and financial matters by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials installed in their posts during the former administration, adding that Taiwan’s problems cannot be solved until these issues are dealt with.
In response to media queries on the Tsai administration’s performance over the past six months, Lee said the government is not handling the issues the public expects it to deal with, citing a drop in Tsai’s approval ratings from 50 percent to about 30 percent.
“[Tsai] must be careful in regard to the issues I just mentioned, otherwise her approval ratings will drop further. If she is not careful, she could end up like the South Korean President [Park Geun-hye],” Lee said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS