Ranking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday said the "red team" -- a colloquial term for pro-Beijing US academics and officials -- which was critical of President Chen Shui-bian's (
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
Lee's remarks were made in response to a report by Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) after his trip to the US from July 11 to July 17 to visit various think tanks, congressmembers, officials and media figures.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Wu said in his report that US-Taiwan relations are stable, but still needed further efforts to strengthen bilateral interaction and understanding.
Wu said observers from think tanks in Taiwan, China and the US expressed concern over the conflict of internal opinion in Taiwanese society, manifested in the disagreements among the ruling and opposition parties over the results of the presidential election and the assassination attempt on Chen.
Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) urged the government to tighten up the coordination of "internal opinion," in the wake of Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) "Bulletgate" pamphlets to US government officials in which the party "made false accusations against the DPP surrounding the election-eve assassination attempt on Chen."
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who attended the CSC meeting for the first time yesterday, suggested that officials -- particularly legislators -- make more frequent visits to US think tanks and academic institutions for short-term studies to enhance the US' understanding of Taiwan's policies.
DPP Legislator Trong Chai (
Chai said the number of Taiwanese students studying in the US stood at about 29,000 each year, falling far behind the 60,000 Chinese students going to the US for study annually.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang (
Su said many Taiwanese students, having spent a long time living in the US and possessing sufficient knowledge about the culture of both the US and Taiwanese societies, could be very useful in bridging barriers.
In his report, Wu indicated the viewpoints shared by some US officials who are regarded as "Taiwan's friends," saying "the US government was deeply concerned over the internal conflicts of the Chinese leadership after the visit by US National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice to Beijing in early July."
President Chen yesterday reiterated the government's determination to push for a peaceful and stable framework across Taiwan Strait.
In related issues, as the party opened the 11th CSC meeting yesterday, President Chen played down speculations that the inclusion of the four likely successors to Chen attending the CSC meeting has anything to do with the DPP's power transfer.
"The DPP has never had any problem with choosing successors, and we don't need to be devious or creative on this subject," Chen said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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