China's bullying of Taiwan in a security meeting serves as a clear indication that the Chinese communist regime has never altered its hegemonic designs against Taiwan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michel Lu (
Lu was referring to the Fourth Asian Security Conference being held in Singapore under the sponsorship by the US-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) since 2000.
He called it hard evidence that the names of the participants from Taiwan, some academics, are listed at the end of the meeting's booklets, which are very likely to be ignored by others, and claimed that China has been using a two-pronged tactic in its dealings with Taiwan by repeatedly avowing goodwill to the country while seeking every means to suppress it.
Under mounting pressure from China, it is increasingly difficult for Taiwan to send ranking officials to take part in the annual conference, sources said, pointing out that Taiwan was still able to dispatch ranking national security officials to the meeting in 2001.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday in the conference that China's authoritarian regime will hobble its booming economy and decrease its influence across the world should it hesitate to launch political reforms.
Rumsfeld also questioned why China deploys hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan.
The IISS is an independent think tank focusing on research, discussions and studies on military strategy, arms control, regional security and conflict resolution.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
RSS