The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday accused China of trying to influence Saturday's election and referendum by staging a large joint exercise off Qingdao with Chinese and French warships.
"China launched the massive military drill with France just four days before Taiwan's 11th presidential election and first-ever national referendum, intending to intimidate our country and influence election and referendum results," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said Beijing's attempt at influencing the election was "absolutely unacceptable."
The joint exercise marked the largest naval drill China has ever conducted with a foreign country, according to Chinese state media and officials.
The foreign ministry said it also deeply regretted France's decision to take part in the naval exercise when Taiwan's presidential election and referendum are so close.
The ministry said this followed recent French remarks and actions against Taiwan, including President Jacques Chirac's public opposition to the referendum in January and France's proposal that the EU lift its ban on weapons sales to China.
"The present timing is sensitive because of the presidential election and referendum. France did not consider the sensitive timing, instead deciding to carry out the largest and most complicated naval drill it has ever had with China," the ministry statement said.
Remarking that the government could not understand why France was taking an anti-Taiwan stance, the ministry said it expressed its "serious concerns and dissatisfaction" to the French Institute in Taipei last night.
"We demand the French authorities offer a reasonable explanation of this [the naval drill]," according to the statement.
China's foreign ministry said it "disagreed with" the accusations that the naval drill with France was in any way related to Taiwan's election.
"In recent years, the development of relations between the two countries [China and France] and the two militaries has been growing smoothly," China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said 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:
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