Independent presidential candidate James Soong (
Before reaching such a consensus, however, Soong said he would ask his vice president, Chang Chao-hsiung
Soong also said he would not rule out the possibility of sending a member of the DPP to China as a cross-strait envoy.
Soong said he would be willing to visit the US, Japan and ASEAN countries as president-elect before the May 20 inaugural ceremony.
"The future leader of Taiwan is not only responsible for the well-being and security of the people of Taiwan, he also has international obligations to maintain peace and stability in the region," Soong said.
"After I am elected president of the Republic of China, I will not only be the favored leader here but also a favored leader of the region," he added.
Soong said the Taiwan Strait has been pegged as "the most likely hot spot for war," but that "politics is the art of the possible."
"While the political dispute cannot be settled at once, I would like to use cultural and economic approaches to promote a friendly atmosphere, in the hopes of pushing through a 30- to 50-year peace accord under the auspices of international witnesses," he said.
Soong has said he would, under the auspices of the international community, push for the signing of a 30-year peace agreement to bring security to the Strait.
Soong also took the opportunity to launch a verbal attack against President Lee Teng-hui's
"It couldn't be more obvious that Lee's formula is not welcomed by the international community," Soong said.
"As a state leader, while he struggled to ensure national security and the people's dignity, he also had to strike a balance between maintaining sovereignty and avoiding an unnecessary armed conflict with China," Soong said.
Despite the fact that both the KMT's Lien Chan
"If China refuses to respect the dignity of the Taiwanese, I would not visit China if I am elected. If Taiwan's people fail to iron out their differences, what subject can we talk to the Chinese about?" he said.
Soong then turned his attention to the president of the Academia Sinica, Lee Yuan-tseh
Lee has offered to act as a cross-strait envoy if Chen is elected.
"Everybody knows that when strong acid meets with a strong base, it will have a strong reaction. Lee himself is a prominent chemist, so he should understand such logic," Soong said.
Soong also said that his national affairs conference would determine the nature of the message that was to be conveyed across the Strait.
"I would not deny the possibility of sending DPP or independent representatives to negotiate with China," Soong added.
Soong also said the current "dump-save" effort indicated that the KMT's presidential candidate has been rejected by most voters.
"The so-called `dump-save' tactic resulting from Lee Yuan-tseh's endorsement of Chen was a feeble attempt to push me out, since Lien's popularity rating has never been over 20 percent," Soong said.
He said that he remains confident of victory.
Meanwhile, in a related development, KMT legislator Chin Hui-chu
Chin's endorsement appeared to come as no surprise to KMT headquarters, since Chin had been included in a party "blacklist" and was waiting to be expelled from the party over suspicions of supporting Soong.
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