In response to a remark by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) that "the Republic of China does not exist anymore," DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday said the former president's remarks reflected his personal long-term political and historical perspectives and that it wouldn't cause a problem for the DPP.
The former president said last Saturday that "the ROC does not exist anymore, but some politicians just don't realize it" while participating in a campaign activity to change the country's name from ROC to Taiwan.
Lee Ying-yuan yesterday said the former president's remarks reflected his long-term perspectives and beliefs over his past 12 years as the nation's president.
"That represented Lee's perspective: The historical responsibility and an insistence on promoting Taiwan's separate identity from mainland China," Lee Ying-yuan said.
He explained that the former president "would only say so because he's worried about whether Taiwan could shape its own national identity."
Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), deputy director of the DPP's department of information and culture, said yesterday the former president's comment was a "unique interpretation" which wouldn't cause any problems for the DPP.
"The bottom line for the DPP's stance on the cross-Strait relations is still the principle of one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait," Cheng said.
Responding to Lee's remark, Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shih-fang (
"The government's stance is clear, and that is that Taiwan is an independent sovereign state and its name is the Republic of China," she said.
As it requires a constitutional amendment to change the official name of the nation, Liu said that public consensus is necessary for such a move.
"No matter what impact Lee's remark would have on society, either resulting in social movements or triggering national debates, we don't have any right to tell him what to say or do," Liu said.
Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday expressed the same opinion.
"The former president has the freedom of speech to say whatever he likes as long it doesn't violate any laws," said Ma, who is in the US on a six-day visit. "However, it will be up to the people to decide whether his remark is appropriate or not."
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not