France does not oppose Taiwan's first national referendum on March 20 but disagrees with any votes that might change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) quoted its French counterpart as saying yesterday.
Chiou Jong-nan (
At a state banquet honoring visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao (
According to the explanation given by the French foreign ministry, Chirac was not referring specifically to the March defensive referendum proposed by President Chen Shui-bian (
The French ministry told Chiou that Chirac was referring to any referendum that would have sufficient impact to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, said MOFA spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦).
"That is why both Chirac and France's foreign ministry have never, in their open statements about Taiwan's referendum, specified that they oppose the March vote," Shih said.
Admitting that they favor the "one-China" principle, officials in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs encouraged China and Taiwan to conduct open dialogues.
"What France opposes is unilateral actions that may destroy peace in the Taiwan Strait. France opposes any referendum on Taiwan's independence," the French ministry said.
French diplomats told Chiou that they understood the referendum was a sensitive issue and that they have seriously studied Chen's statements about Taiwan's referendum agenda. They said that a Taiwanese delegation had delivered a presentation on the referendum plan during a visit to France earlier this month, and that their government has taken this presentation into account.
Meanwhile, National Security Council Chairman Wei Che-ho (魏哲和) and Council for Cultural Affairs Chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀) have canceled planned trips to France as a result of Chirac's remarks.
Shih said there was currently no plan to halt exchanges between Taiwan and France.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS