The Presidential Office yesterday said that People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's (
Soong yesterday told students at Beijing's Tsinghua University that "it is the PFP's consistent stance that Taiwan independence is a dead end; Taiwan independence has never been a choice that the PFP and Taiwan should make."
While stating that every individual in Taiwan is entitled to his own opinion and enjoys freedom of speech, the Presidential Office's Department of Public Affairs expressed disapproval at Soong's comments by referring to a 10-point consensus reached between Soong and President Chen Shui-bian (
Soong is currently on a tour of China which he has dubbed "bridge-building." Prior to his departure, Soong said he would discuss the 10-point consensus with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), who he is expected to meet today.
The Presidential Office said that, according to the sixth point in the Chen-Soong consensus issued on Feb. 24, any change to the status quo between Taiwan and China had to be determined by Taiwan's 23 million people and that no option -- including Taiwanese independence -- would be ruled out.
Ahead of Soong's meeting with Hu, the Presidential Office yesterday renewed its denunciation of the so-called "1992 consensus."
The Presidential Office statement said there never was a consensus, despite various references to the "1992 consensus" in the wake of trips by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Saying that none of the people who attended the Hong Kong meeting mentioned a "1992 consensus" before or after the talks, the statement added that the term was created by former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (
"One ought not to attach historic truth to a term that was created after the event," the statement said, adding that history should not be "changed, misinterpreted or misrepresented" by anybody as the political landscape changes.
Stating that there exists a complete archived record of the process and results of the 1992 negotiations, the Presidential Office said that the late chairman of the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), Koo Chen-fu (
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
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
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