Describing the remarks made by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his US trip as "unacceptable," Senior Advisor to the President Koo Kuan-min (辜寬敏) said yesterday that Ma's just-concluded visit had done more harm than good to Taiwan.
"I have no idea whether he speaks on behalf of Taiwan or Beijing," Koo told the Taipei Times in an exclusive interview yesterday.
Commenting on the idea of a modus vivendi, or a temporary accommodation of a disagreement between parties pending a permanent settlement, which Ma proposed as a means of resolving the problem of Taiwan's suppressed international presence, Koo questioned whether Beijing could be trusted to honor a temporary accord before a permanent settlement was reached.
"China and the UK signed an agreement to maintain the status quo in Hong Kong for 50 years, but more than 500,000 people in Hong Kong took to the streets in protest two years after the handover," Koo said. "Tibet also signed an agreement with Beijing, but China still kills and jails Tibetan monks and burns their temples."
What guarantee does a temporary agreement signed between Taipei and Beijing give to Taiwan, Koo asked.
"Even if such an accord were signed, anybody with common sense knows that Beijing has more to gain by to annexing Taiwan than by honoring its promise," Koo said. "If such a mechanism could bring peace to the Taiwan Strait, it would have been established a long time ago."
Koo also pointed out that Beijing would always show the cold shoulder to any Taiwanese proposal to resolve the cross-strait dispute unless the nation accepted the "one China" principle.
If someone out of touch with the cross-strait situation suggested that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration could resolve the nation's disagreements with China without accepting the "one China" principle, Koo said that he would have laughed at their naivete. But for a politician well-versed in cross-strait politics to suggest such a thing was ridiculous, he said.
Commenting on Ma's request to meet with Chen, Kuo said that the move, while in line with common courtesy, lacked any real meaning.
Referring to the cancelation of the DPP debate on China policies, Koo said that the event should not have been scheduled in the first place because President Chen Shui-bian (
"The address was like the president saying goodbye to his old self and beginning to walk his own path," Koo said. "A party policy debate would only have been necessary if the president had insisted on pushing incorrect polices."
Koo also dismissed speculation that the cancelation of the policy debate was a sign that Chen was losing his grip on the party, saying that people who claimed this was the case were "sowing discord to serve their private interests."
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400