Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday returned to Taiwan after a two-week state visit to Taiwan's allies in Central America, claiming that her trip not only enhanced the country's diplomatic ties but also displayed that the Taiwan-US relationship is improving.
"I am very satisfied that we enjoyed highly courteous receptions during the stopovers in US cities, which demonstrated appropriate respect to Taiwan's dignity, and it further proved that Washington-Taipei relations are still good," Lu said during a short press briefing at the CKS airport yesterday morning.
Lu stressed that before her departure on May 28, the public described her trip as a "test moment" of Taiwan's diplomatic ties with the US after the severe disputes during the presidential election, and, fortunately, her visit was fruitful.
PHOTO: TONY YAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"We also experienced again how our country's allies persist in their strong support and approval of `Taiwan ROC,' which have deeply touched the delegation," she said.
Lu first suggested calling the country "Taiwan ROC" on Saturday when she made a speech to hundreds of overseas Taiwanese at a dinner party in San Francisco.
Lu said that the suggestion was her personal idea and had nothing to do with the future processes of President Chen Shui-bian's (
The Presidential Office issued a news release immediately after her remarks, saying that any personal ideas or suggestions would neither affect nor change President Chen's original promises in exercising his constitutional re-engineering mission.
Chen pledged in his inauguration speech that constitutional reforms under his second presidency would exclude issues related to national sovereignty, territory and the subject of unification or independence. He stressed that he would also adhere to the promises he had made in his 2000 inauguration speech (the five noes, including that he would not change the name of the country).
Both the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) ally -- the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) -- and its opponents -- the pan-blue camp -- criticized Lu's remarks.
However, Lu insisted on using the name during the latter part of her trip, saying that she sincerely appreciated foreign friends' assistance to the country of "Taiwan ROC."
Secretary General of the Presidential Office Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and DPP secretary general Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), who were present yesterday to welcome Lu on her return, both refused to comment on her remarks about changing the country's official name.
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:
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