A US defense official warning to Taiwan over the passage of a controversial arms bill was out of line, a local civic group charged yesterday, while criticizing the government for giving a weak and ineffective response to the incident.
Calling the recent comments American "blackmail," the social group the Democratic Advancement Alliance held a press conference yesterday in response to Tuesday's comments by US Defense Department Deputy Undersecretary Richard Lawless that a failure to approve the controversial NT$610.8 billion arms deal would send negative signals about Taiwan's attitude toward security and make Taiwan a burden on its allies.
Since being proposed by the Cabinet earlier this year, the budget has met with resistance from opposition lawmakers and civil activists.
Echoing the criticisms of the pan-blue camp yesterday, the alliance said the US has no business interfering with Taiwan's domestic affairs.
The group said Lawless' comments are not representative of the US or its people, which are deeply democratic and supportive of independence. Instead, they said, his comments are indicative of the influence of weapons contractors Bush administration.
"Why is the US putting pressure on us right now, when it's uncertain who their next leader will be? Lawless' words reflect the concern of arms merchants that the deal will not go through and the influence of those businesses on the US government," said alliance spokesperson Kuo Chung-i (
The alliance also criticized the government for its "lack of a response," saying that such blatant interference by the US should warrant a stronger reaction.
"The Chen Shui-bian (
The alliance announced that it will hold a concert at the National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung tomorrow night from 5:30pm to 9pm.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift