Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday appealed to all his supporters to help push Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) into the Presi-dential Office.
Ma also rebutted a rumor that his supporters would vote for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in order for Ma to be nominated as the KMT's next presidential candidate.
Ma's remarks came in response to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) predictions about the KMT's succession issues.
Chen said at campaign rally on Sunday night that Lien will have to step down as KMT chairman and take responsibility for KMT's failure.
He said he believed that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
"It was quite inappropriate for Chen to talk about the other camp just a few days before election day," Ma said at a news conference called by the pan-blue camp to announce its "new blueprint for Taiwan."
"Whether Chen will be reelected is still a big variable," Ma said. "I think he should propose more political platforms at this moment."
Ma said if Chen was reelected, Taiwan situation with regards to cross-strait affairs and international relations would worsen. He urged his supporters to vote for Lien and People First Party Chairman James Soong (
"I would not be thinking about my own political future if the country has huge problems," Ma said.
"Should we choose the wrong one again, we will have to live another four years with remorse," he said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS