The international community is beginning to understand the serious ramifications of Beijing's proposed "anti-secession law," thanks to the foreign ministry's efforts to get the message across, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Michael Kau (高英茂) said yesterday.
Meeting with a group of independence activists at his office, Kau explained that the international community is starting to understand that Beijing is trying to translate its threat against Taiwan into pressure on Taiwanese people and businesspeople through the proposed law.
Citing information gathered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kau said it is possible that Taiwanese people would be subject to criminal punishment when they are outside the country because of the "schism" of their domicile as provided for in the Beijing law, which is an infringement on their human rights, he said.
The ministry has sent delegations around the world to explain what Beijing is up to, although there are still some countries that believe that the proposed law won't disturb the cross-strait status quo.
This issue is put on the back burner by some countries because they already have their hands full with the crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and North Korea, Kau said.
Kau said his ministry is sparing no effort to make the world understand that if they coddle China on this issue, it will only encourage military adventurism in solving its disputes with Taiwan.
Activists, mainly members of the Taiwan societies in northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan, and the Association of Lee Teng-hui's Friends, have urged the ministry to respond strongly to Beijing's "anti-secession law," and to push vigorously for the country's entry into the UN or organize a referendum to decide the country's future.
Meanwhile, reacting to the recent US-Japan statement that included a reference to cross-strait peace and stability, a diplomat told a Manila seminar on Monday that Taiwan acts in accordance with its best interests and needs.
ROC representative to the Philippines Wu Hsin-hsing (
Wu said that the US and Japan formulate their East Asian policies based on their own interests, and that the recent statement indicated that the two countries are concerned about and have taken heed of the subtle changes of the strategic environment in East Asia and the entire Asia-Pacific region.
He said the changes have come from the so-called "peaceful emergence" of China, the North Korean nuclear crisis and the subtle changes in cross-strait relations.
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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