President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that Taiwan would not give in to threats from China, after Panama announced earlier in the day that it was switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
Despite Beijing’s constant suppression of Taiwan’s international space, the Republic of China (ROC) remains a sovereign nation and that is a fact Beijing cannot deny, Tsai said at a news conference after the announcement.
In addition, the ROC’s existence and its value and status in the international community cannot be changed, she said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“Our approach of not competing with Beijing’s ‘checkbook diplomacy’ will not change,” she added.
On behalf of Taiwan’s 23 million people, “we will not compromise under its threat,” she said.
“Our only choice is to work together against the threat,” which is the most powerful way to highlight Taiwan’s sovereignty, Tsai said, adding that Taiwan’s existence and its presence in the international arena are vital to regional peace and stability.
“We would not be happy to see cross-strait relations go from peaceful to confrontational because of Beijing’s mistaken thinking and provocations,” she said.
The president said her message to Beijing is that Taiwan has fulfilled its responsibility to maintain cross-strait peace and stability, but Beijing’s actions have affected the stable cross-strait “status quo,” which is unacceptable to Taiwanese.
National security authorities had been keeping abreast of the situation as it developed and had done their best, but Panama’s final decision was regrettable, she said.
The government would now work to ensure that national economic plans would not be affected and would continue to protect the rights of Taiwanese businesspeople and other Taiwanese in the Central American nation, she said.
At a separate news conference, Presidential Office Secretary-
General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) described Beijing’s action as a “mistake” that would hurt the cross-strait “status quo” and push cross-strait ties from peace toward confrontation, adding that the government would re-evaluate the cross-strait situation.
He also urged Beijing to desist from any moves that could damage regional stability and hurt Taiwanese, and appealed to Taiwanese to stand united in the face of external challenges.
“Such action is not only a blatant threat to Taiwanese’s right to survive, but also a blatant provocation to cross-strait and regional peace and stability,” he said. “We hereby express our serious condemnation.”
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) told a separate news conference that the government would not rule out reviewing related policies, including those on cross-strait ties and taking “necessary measures.”
He said that over the past year, the government has committed itself to maintaining cross-strait peace and stability by exercising restraint and showing good will.
However, Beijing has repeatedly hurt the feelings of Taiwanese and created confrontation and conflict across the Taiwan Strait, he said, adding that Chinese authorities must “take full responsibility” for damaging cross-strait peace and stability.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) also expressed regret over Panama’s decision to break diplomatic ties with Taiwan and establish formal relations with China.
“I do not think it is effective if China believes it can achieve its ‘one China’ principle by poaching Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. In fact, it could backfire and cause cross-strait relations to deteriorate,” Lin said.
Additional reporting by Chen Wei-han
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS