National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) yesterday said Taiwan-US relations have entered a new "grinding period" and there is no miscommunication between the two sides.
Chiou also said analysts and political observers should cease analyzing Taiwan-US ties with an "old fashioned perspective."
Admitting that "the US in the past had not quite understood our position," Chiou yesterday said that is no longer the case and that "the US now understands us."
Chiou explained the process by which Taiwan and the US deal with issues of interest to both parties.
"What's important is that both sides have a mutual understanding of each other," Chiou said. "If an issue arises, the US should first confirm [with Taiwan] whether it is a new issue, or whether it is an issue that has already been discussed in that past, and that both parties have reached a consensus."
"The US just wants to know that when issues arise, whether they are in line with the message which we have conveyed to it before," Chiou said, adding that Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) consistently upheld his "five noes" pledge.
Chiou also said while the US welcomes Taiwan's democratization, it also has to face the rising of "Taiwanese identity," which comes along with the nation's democratic progress.
"With regard to democratic development and the rise of a `Taiwan consciousness,' it is something that cannot be cut into two separate issues," Chiou said.
In response to remarks made by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Cho-shui (
"There are all kinds of messages and all kinds of assessments, one cannot say how good [Taiwan-US relations] are, nor can they exaggerate how bad [Taiwan-US relations] are," said Chiou.
Stating that he was surprised by the remarks made by Lin, Chiou said "what these people say is simply reproducing remarks they heard from other people. Who among these people has direct contact with the people around Bush?"
"It is not good to spread words in such a way," Chiou added, saying that Lin should not belittle the efforts of the Chen administration.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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