China will be willing to resume talks with Taiwan only if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) gains a clear majority in the Legislative Yuan in the Dec. 11 elections, DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said yesterday.
Chang made the remarks while stumping for DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊毅) who is seeking another three-year term in the southern Tainan County constituency.
Chang said that although the DPP managed to win the presidency in 2000, it has yet to control a clear majority in the legislature.
As a result, Chang said, many aspects of the DPP's political reform agenda and its policy initiatives have been blocked by thel legislature over the past four years.
Chang said he intensely hopes that the "pan-green" camp can win a majority in the 225-seat legislature in next month's elections. If this goal is accomplished, he said, the DPP will then become a full-fledged ruling party and be able to implement its core agenda.
"Moreover, Beijing would be more willing to resume dialogue with Taiwan to forge cross-strait rapprochement, " Chang said, claiming that the DPP's inability to control a majority in the legislature has been a factor discouraging China from negotiating with the government.
"If we manage to gain control of the legislature, we'll have an even stronger mandate to negotiate with Beijing, and mainland leaders will no longer be able to ignore the DPP administration's call for peaceful dialogue and engagement," Chang said.
Beijing unilaterally suspended dialogue with Taiwan in July 1999 after then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) defined cross-strait relations as a special state-to-state relationship, which Beijing viewed as a move promoting Taiwan independence.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods