Secretary-General of the Presi-dential Office Chiou I-jen (
In a session held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, high-ranking officials from the Presidential Office and the National Security Council (NSC) endeavored to allay the 40 envoys' concerns about the referendum issue and dismiss the international perception that President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) brinkmanship was the driving force behind the "defensive referendum."
Firmly denying that Chen intended to use the referendum to pave the way for Taiwanese independence, Chiou said that the DPP was determined to deepen the people's democratic rights.
The media were not allowed into the closed-door session, but ministry spokesman Richard Shih (
In an interview with the Finan-cial Times published yesterday, Chen said the testing of missiles near Taiwan by China would be regarded as an attack. Chen also said he would abandon his "five noes" pledge, which includes a promise not to declare independence, if China used force against Taiwan.
Explaining Chen's intention to hold a referendum to ask China to dismantle its missiles aimed at Taiwan, Chiou said the president wanted people in Taiwan and other countries to be aware of how serious the missile threat was.
"People in Taiwan and other countries take the missile threat for granted. Chen wants people to strengthen their mental defense against the threat," Chiou said.
Chiou denied the referendum proposals were part of Chen's campaign strategy for next year's presidential election.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (
"As far as I know, there are no preparations for such a vote," he said.
NSC Senior Advisor Lin Wen-cheng (
Shih quoted Lin as saying that choosing March 20 to conduct the referendum was a way of saving money.
Lin said that a gap still exists between the government's intentions to hold a referendum and the US perception of it. Nevertheless, Chien said, the government was still trying to communicate with the US about referendum issues.
An insider described the overall atmosphere at the hour-long session as calm and said the envoys raised few questions.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Sun Ta-chien (
But Sun said Chiou's explanation did not entirely clear the envoys' concerns about Chen's plan to hold the referendum.
Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁), director of the Center for Disease Control, also briefed the diplomats on the SARS case that was confirmed in Taiwan yesterday.
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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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