President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that China’s persecution of Taiwan is a calculated move to meddle in the nation’s domestic politics and influence upcoming local elections.
Tsai, who is also chairperson of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the remarks at a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee, citing incidents over the past few months such as El Salvador breaking diplomatic ties, the cancelation of Taichung’s right to host the first East Asian Youth Games next year and Beijing’s pressure campaigns against Taiwanese coffee and bakery chain 85°C (85度C) and international airlines.
“We must steel ourselves against the reality that China’s persecution of Taiwan will continue unabated into the election season,” Tsai said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“China’s goals in persecuting Taiwan are to strike at our morale and to influence the nation’s domestic politics and election results,” she added.
As Taiwanese have chosen sovereignty and democracy, the government would confront the challenges before it with courage, Tsai said.
The cross-strait relationship is a part of geopolitics and China’s persecution of Taiwan is driven by its quest for regional influence, not internal political differences in Taiwanese political parties about China, she said.
The demands China has made on the nation’s sovereignty has crossed the line for all major Taiwanese political parties and the common denominator of Taiwanese society is that the nation of Taiwan is the Republic of China, she added.
“We must hold this line; we are the ruling party and we are duty-bound,” the president said.
China has intensified its campaign to persecute the nation because Taiwan has strengthened its relationship with major powers on issues of substance and because the DPP administration has refused to make any compromise on national sovereignty, she said.
“I return to my quotation of [former US] president [Ronald] Reagan: ‘Everything is negotiable except two things, our freedom and our future,’” Tsai said.
“We must have the conviction that the harder the test, the more we must keep our faith that we are on the right path,” she said, urging the DPP to support her administration’s efforts to strengthen the nation’s economy and defenses.
“The behavior of our neighbor across the [Taiwan] Strait is out of our hands, but so long as the nation stands together for democratic values and institutions, we control our own destiny,” she added.
Additional reporting by CNA
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS