The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and Taiwan's representative office in Singapore said yesterday they had no idea whether Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) met with Chinese officials during his visit to Singapore.
Lien, who visited Singapore several times when he was the vice president and premier, could have asked the Taipei Representative Office in Singapore to help arrange his visit. The diplomatic privilege is granted to former leaders of the country.
However, according to a Taiwanese government representative in Singapore, the KMT and the Singaporean government planned Lien's two-day trip. The KMT did not consult the representative office in Singapore about Lien's visit.
"It is inconvenient for us to intervene in [Lien's trip]. We know the KMT and the Singaporean side arranged the visit," the representative said.
Michel Lu (
"We are happy to see the success of unofficial exchanges," he said.
The MAC said it had no information about whether Lien met with the Chinese communist officials in Singapore, but noted that KMT officials denied reports of Lien's contact with the Chinese government.
KMT Legislator Su Chi (
Lien and Singaporean leaders are "familiar friends," said Su, a former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office. "I don't think his trip to Singapore had anything to do with his planned trip to China. The Singaporean visit was scheduled long time ago."
MAC Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Saturday that Lien, who is planning a trip to China, might break the law if he signs any agreement with Chinese leaders that involves Taiwan's sovereignty.
Wu said the government would not intervene in social exchanges between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. But he warned the KMT would be violating the law if it goes ahead and signs a "peace deal" with Beijing without the government's authorization.
In related news, Wang Dan (
Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles, Wang said the KMT demanded truth and democracy in Taiwan but ignored China's abuses of human rights.
He challenged Lien to ask Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to make moves toward democratization during his visit to China.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS