The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday Taiwan and China should exchange special envoys serving as both sides' official communication channels now that the presidential election is over.
The exchange of envoys, first put forth by President Chen Shui-bian (
Jan Jyh-horng (
The envoys could also reduce the chance of conflict.
MAC Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (
Jan, in a speech to council officials yesterday, urged Beijing to learn more about Taiwan's ever-evolving democracy.
Only through dialogue and communication with Taipei can Beijing really understand what is happening in Taiwan, he said.
The spirit of Chen's "five noes" pledge, which included a promise not to declare independence during his term, is to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, Jan said.
He said he was not sure whether Chen would repeat the "five noes" pledge in his second term. However, he noted the government's cross-strait policies would not change much because of Chen's "campaign language."
Optimistic about the development of cross-strait relations, Jan said government policies are unlikely to change because of the president's personal remarks.
The council's team working on the "peace and stability framework" had designed the proposal in order to maintain the status quo, he said.
Jan noted that although Bei-jing has kept a low profile regarding this year's election, it has blasted Taiwan's referendum as a tool to achieve independence.
Jan said China's media harshly criticized Chen during the presidential campaign to satisfy Beijing's desire to brand the president as a separatist.
"It is a system of education to fool its people," he said.
In the past, China did not allow other countries to get involved in cross-strait affairs. But this year it actively lobbied the international community to pressure Taiwan over the referendum issue, he said.
Taiwan faced "unprecedented diplomatic pressure" because of China's strategy to get other countries to speak against the referendum, Jan 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