A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker yesterday criticized the nation's top cross-strait policymaking body for its tentative endorsement of an "interim agreement" that would prevent Taiwan from declaring independence and China from using military force.
"Independence does not depend on whether you seek it. Basically, [the interim agreement] is asking us to annul any international recognition that Taiwan currently has -- how can this be allowed? How can you take this proposal into consideration?" DPP Legislator Lin Cho-shui (
Lin was referring to media reports on remarks made by former US National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Kenneth Lieberthal on Tuesday. Lieberthal had suggested the possibility of a cross-strait interim agreement based on a exchange of vows rejecting formal declarations of independence by Taipei and the use of military force by Beijing. He had stressed that the agreement would have to be forged by Taiwan and China, without outside intervention. Lieberthal first introduced the notion in 1998.
Debate on the matter was sparked at a legislative budgetary session yesterday when Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (
Wu said that an interim agreement was one of the possibilities the council could consider and that similar concepts underpinned the "peace and stability framework" that had been introduced by President Chen Shui-bian (
"The `peace and stability framework' includes the notion of an interim agreement," Wu said.
Wu's remarks raised some eyebrows, with legislators criticizing the "assumption that undeclared independence is not independence."
"When I heard you say you were willing to take the interim agreement into consideration, I was, quite frankly, shocked," Lin told Wu yesterday.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching