Premier Frank Hsieh (
"The reason we are doing this is because [the Chinese government] deprived us of our right to make our own free choice about the country's future. Of course, we have to do something about this kind of unfriendly behavior," Hsieh said during the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.
"Government officials are also Taiwanese citizens, so they definitely have the right to express themselves. I shall stand with the people and that is why I decided to join the event," he said.
The premier said that the rally on Saturday is aimed at raising awareness in the international community of how upset the Taiwanese people are about the Anti-Secession Law.
While Taiwan has been trying to solve cross-strait problems, China has still not abandoned the possibility of launching military strikes against Taiwan, he said.
Hsieh once again urged people taking part in the rally not to use the event to promote their own political agenda or as a platform for disseminating propaganda.
"This will be a cross-party activity. That means people from different political parties will all be welcomed. As a result, I hope we can all focus on the theme of the rally," he said.
Speaking on behalf of the premier, Cabinet Spokesman Chou Jung-tai (
"We will not force anybody to participate in the rally, divide participants into groups or hold a roll call. Consequently, you will not see a team in so-called `Cabinet uniforms' during the rally," Chou said.
He told reporters that the premier has forbidden his fellow officials from using government resources for the rally or attending it during office hours.
"Some Cabinet members asked the premier whether they should gather at the starting line of the rally. The premier told them that they should participate in the rally at any time and anywhere at their best convenience," Chou said.
"That means the Cabinet will not attend as a group. All officials are more than welcome to join the rally anywhere along the route," the spokesman said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift