Responding to yesterday's election victory by DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian (
"According to Article 138 of the Constitution, the armed forces should be loyal to the country and protect the people. Article 36 stipulates the president is the supreme commander of the armed forces," Tang said.
"The armed forces should therefore abide by the Constitution and be loyal to the leader of the country. I hereby announce on behalf of the armed forces that the military will be loyal to the new supreme commander of the country," he said.
Taiwan's military was placed on alert before the vote, but officials said on Friday that they had detected no unusual moves by China to indicate a military response to the election was forthcoming.
Tang's pledge of loyalty to the president-elect was seen as prudent and a reassuring gesture since the mainlander-dominated military leadership does not agree with Chen's pro-independence stance.
It also follows remarks by Minister of National Defense Tang Fei (
Former defense minister Chiang Chung-ling (
He had added, however, that the military would support any president as long as he was popularly elected.
According to a local newspaper, Minister Tang told a KMT rally for Lien on Friday that if Chen was elected, he thought China would ratchet up tensions across the Taiwan Strait in a bid to force Chen to yield to its demands.
Su Chin-chiang (
"The cross-strait situation will not see any big change in one year. Beijing will try to watch political developments in Taiwan during the first year of Chen's presidency," Su said.
"Chen's pro-independence colors do arouse some doubt within the military, especially the veterans who retreated with the KMT government to Taiwan in 1949," he said.
"But the impact might not as big as expected, since the military has now stopped condemning the Taiwan independence movement in its political education courses for servicemen," he said.
"We might say the military has made itself ready for the change in political development," he added.
Su said he does not believe Chen will announce independence for Taiwan after he becomes president, but he added that it will take some time for Chen to win the confidence of servicemen.
Meanwhile, military spokes-man Major General Kung Fan-ding (孔繁定) explained why it was the chief of the general staff, rather than the minister, who declared the military's loyalty.
"According to the newly enforced National Defense Law, the chief of the general staff is the chief staff officer to the defense minister. But what General Tang announced today was just a repetition of what Minister Tang had said before the election," Kung said.
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS