Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma, who is also mayor of Taipei, said however that he supports the idea of maintaining the cross-strait "status quo."
Ma made the remarks at a conference held by the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.
During the conference, Ma was invited by the host, US international relations scholar Jerome Cohen, to answer questions on issues concerning Taiwan and cross-strait relations.
Ma said that "practically, Taiwan is independent," and that "no country in the world has to announce its independence twice."
As to the "one China" concept proposed by Beijing, Ma said that he believed "the one China is the Republic of China."
Mentioning an agreement allegedly reached by the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in 1992 on the definition of "one China," namely "one China to be interpreted respectively by each sides," Ma said it was the agreement that contributed to the first dialogue between the two sides in more than four decades.
He said he believed that the two sides could resume their talks under a similar model and that Taiwan had the right to state its own definition of "one China."
Answering questions about cross-strait economic and trade development and economic integration in the region, Ma said Taiwan should guard against being marginalized as other countries in the region had been sparing no effort in the promotion of regional economic integration and signing bilateral free trade agreements.
Ma noted that while international business groups had shown an aggressive attitude in making inroads into the China market, Taiwanese businesses had been restricted by the government's existing policy.
However, Ma said he believed cross-strait trade and economic relations would develop and become closer in the future.
In reaction, DPP spokesman Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said in Taipei yesterday that Ma's remarks were disappointing because he had failed to condemn China's "Anti-Secession" Law and to denounce the missile threat against Taiwan.
"Ma, chairman of Taiwan's largest opposition party, should take the opportunity to speak out on the fact that Taiwan is a sovereign state and does not belong to China. However, Ma not only failed to do so, but also used the opportunity to score points against the Taiwanese government, which is disappointing," Tsai said.
Tsai also said that by claiming that the so-called "one China" was the Republic of China, rather than the People's Republic of China, Ma deceived himself, the Taiwanese public and the US.
"Ma also hurt the nation by claiming that `the power of pro-independence voices in Taiwan had died away,'" Tsai said, urging Ma to voice mainstream public opinion during the rest of his US visit.
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
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,