In his year-end talk to the people of Taiwan, President Chen Shui-bian (
"Taiwan's democracy will become the common asset of people across the Strait and by no means is it a burden to the people of both sides," Chen said at the last meeting of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Central Standing Committee.
"The consensus reached by the Taiwanese people through this democratic means will be the basis for the two sides to initiate future dialogue and communications," he said.
Chen yesterday urged the people of Taiwan to continue striving for the deepening of democracy, which has become a successful model to the rest of the world.
He said he appreciated international support for the referendum, which will be held on the day of the presidential election, March 20, and commended the referendum as a remarkable milestone in Taiwan's democratic development.
Chen said the two referendum questions prove "the determination of the Taiwanese government to protect the peaceful status quo across the Strait to prevent China from using force to unilaterally change the status quo. In addition, the people of Taiwan want to construct a peaceful interaction framework with China to resolve the long-standing political stalemate across the Strait," Chen said.
He said Taiwan's democracy was not a gift; it was a hard-won achievement resulting from the determination of Taiwanese people.
After detailing Taiwan's major democratic achievements over the past two decades, Chen said: "In 2004, the people of Taiwan are going to hold a historic referendum. I believe that ... history will record March 20, 2004, as a day when the people of Taiwan cast their ballots to choose not only their new president but also to decide the nation's policy and future," Chen said.
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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