The head of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said he hoped a planned show of people power will convince China to scrap its new "Anti-Secession" Law, or Taipei may be forced to take more provocative action.
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (
Su said the legislation was a threat to world peace and fuelled independence sentiment in Taiwan, negating other gestures from China like the offer of economic incentives to aid Beijing's goal of peaceful unification.
"It's like slicing someone's head with an axe, then giving him a lollipop and hoping that can solve the problem," Su said in his first media interview since taking office in January.
"We hope the whole world can see that in the Taiwan Strait, it is China that is using its power to cause trouble," he said.
"We hope that while there is still time, the international community can make this law cease to exist," said Su, who is seen as one of the front-runners for the 2008 presidential race.
Su's appeal came as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Chinese leaders in Beijing.
Pro-independence politicians in Taiwan have criticized President Chen Shui-bian (
"The ruling party's stance is that we hope to resolve the problem with the most peaceful and self-restrained measures. We do not hope to raise the stakes to direct confrontation and opposition," Su said.
"But if we are forced to the point where we have no choice, then things may become more antagonistic and intense. But that is something we do not wish to see," he said.
Su said the DPP did not want to provoke China, sticking to the relatively conciliatory tone set by Chen since last December's legislative elections.
Although the DPP's charter sets Taiwan independence from China as its final goal, Su did not rule out unification as a possible outcome.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,