Defending President Chen Shui-bian's (
"Accepting the `one China' principle is tantamount to recognizing the People's Republic of China and abandoning the nation's sovereignty and dignity," Yu said. "As the nation's highest government administrator, I don't support any attempts to annihilate the Republic of China."
Yu made the remarks yesterday during a question-and-answer session in the legislature.
Lien said on Sunday that, if elected in next year's election, he would immediately make a "journey of peace" to China.
Lien also promised that he would push for the immediate opening of direct air links with China and sign agreements with Beijing so that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait can live in peace.
Chen dubbed the trip "a voyage of surrender" and said that the sojourn would only be possible if Lien accepted the "one China" principle.
Although Chen had announced similar plans to visit China before and after the presidential election in 2000, Yu said Chen's intentions had been different.
"While Lien would embrace the `one China' principle to visit China, President Chen would visit China only when `one China' was a discussion issue and not a premise of the trip," Yu said, adding that Taiwan is an independent sovereign state and its national designation is the Republic of China.
KMT Legislator Liao Fung-te (
"From my point of view, the DPP is like a turtle cowering in its shell," Liao said.
Yu said that only those accepting the "one China" principle and "one country, two systems" fitted that description.
The two began arguing after Liao asked Yu to stop talking nonsense and Yu protested to Legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Liao went on to ask Yu, with the government continually urging China to sit down and talk, what issue the government wanted to discuss: peace or war.
"As a peace-loving nation, we'll do our best to conduct peaceful talks and negotiations under the principles of national interest, public opinion and legislative resolutions," Yu said.
In response to a question from PFP Legislator Cheng San-yun (
"From the military viewpoint, China poses a threat to the nation's security," Yu said. "On the economic front, both sides enjoy frequent trade. On the political side, both sides are two independent countries and neither is subordinate to the other."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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