President Chen Shui-bian (
"These missiles of mass destruction have seriously damaged the stability of the Asia-Pacific region and put all 23 million Taiwanese under the fear of war," Chen said. "As the head of state, I must clearly tell the truth to the people of the country and repeatedly remind them to remain alert.
"However, some politicians accused me of revealing national secrets," Chen said. "I wonder which country's secrets I have revealed?"
Chen detailed late Sunday the arsenal of Chinese missiles targeting Taiwan and the location of missile bases, saying that the military threat from China was a clear and present danger to Taiwan. He said the threat constituted the essential condition to allow him to initiate a "defensive referendum," as authorized by the recently passed Referendum Law (公民投票法).
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (
Though some DPP heavyweights have already condemned Lin for making an inappropriate accusation, Chen personally fought back yesterday.
"What I revealed were China's national secrets," Chen said.
"Those who accused me must stand on the same side with China," Chen said. "I understand that maybe they are right because China is actually their country."
Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou Yi-jen (
"The current peace of the Taiwan Strait is a `false impression' and the cross-strait relationship is apparently calm but is actually intense, which makes the nation lose its awareness," Chiou said.
"The president's idea of a defensive referendum is to rebuild everyone's awareness in facing danger from a foreign power," Chiou said. "If China demonstrates a stronger intention to take military action, the necessity of immediately launching the defensive referendum will also be increased."
Speaking on the meaning of the US government's recent comments on the referendum issue, Chiou stressed that Taiwan completely understood the US stance in differentiating between an independence referendum and Taiwan independence.
"The US government clearly expressed that it opposes any referendum that changes the status quo and leads toward independence and it does not support Taiwan's independence," Chiou said.
"Those two remarks referred to different matters and showed that the US government's cross-strait policy remains unchanged," he said.
Chiou said that the government has frequently communicated with officials of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to expound Chen's thoughts.
"We have reaffirmed that Taiwan has no intention to provoke anyone and will firmly maintain President Chen's `five noes' of his inauguration speech," said Chiou, "and we believe that AIT Director Douglas Paal will express our stance to Washington."
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Joseph Wu (
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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