The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it did not know of any interactions between the opposition parties and the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) when asked to comment on the pan-blue camp's appeal to the US for help in solving the election dispute.
After losing the presidential election by a wafer-thin margin, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Victor Chin (
"But I believe the US will adhere to its principle of not interfering in other countries' internal and election affairs," Chin said.
So far the US has made no comment about the failed referendum, he said.
The referendum, proposed by Chen, asked the public whether it wanted the government to strengthen the nation's anti-missile defenses and whether the government should establish a "peace and stability framework" with China.
When Chen won the 2000 presidential election, the White House sent him a congratulatory message. This year, however, the US government congratulated the Taiwanese people for conducting "a democratic election campaign." The message was issued by the State Department.
Asked to comment on the difference between the congratulatory notes from the White House and the State Department, Chin said the question should be addressed to the US government.
Ministry spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦) said governments and political dignitaries from 62 countries had sent congratulatory notes for Chen's re-election by last night.
Meanwhile, an advisory committee to the Mainland Affairs Council convened yesterday to discuss the post-election cross-strait relationship.
Regarding Chen's plan to write a new constitution, the committee suggested that the government, when starting constitutional reform, take into account not only local opinion but also international concerns, especially those of the US and China.
The committee also urged the government to repair its relationship with the US, which is believed to have been damaged in the course of the campaign due to issues such as Chen's plans for a new constitution and the referendum.
Jan Jyh-horng (
Lacking official communication channels with the Chinese authorities, the council can only speculate on Beijing's response to the presidential vote by looking at the Chinese media's reports on the election.
Jan said that Beijing seemed to have been deliberately limiting media coverage of the presidential election, which made it particularly difficult for council officials to know what Beijing was really thinking about the vote.
The committee said Taiwan and China should encourage more cross-strait academic exchanges.
While Taiwanese and Chinese officials cannot freely exchange opinions, academics from both sides should be allowed to discuss whatever topics they are interested in and act as a bridge between both sides' governments, the committee suggested.
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