A spokesman for the Presidential Office yesterday criticized China for complaining to an international newspaper that ran an interview with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
David Lee (李南陽), director of the Department of Public Affairs, was responding to an alleged protest by China's Embassy in the UK to the Financial Times, in the wake of the London-based newspaper's publication of an exclusive interview with the president on Wednesday.
According to Lee, the Chinese embassy in the UK called the Financial Times to ask "why [the paper] was interviewing the president."
Chinese embassies regularly complain to international media that talks to senior Taiwanese officials.
Lee said that Beijing has used a two-pronged approach in dealing with Taiwan, subtly trying to woo it while at the same time actively trying to suppress it in the international arena.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the US State Department on Thursday reiterated that the US "takes seriously" Chen's commitments to exclude sovereignty issues from Taiwan's constitutional reform.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington does not support independence for Taiwan and is opposed to any unilateral changes to the cross-Taiwan Strait status quo by either Taiwan or China.
"We take seriously President Chen's repeated commitments not to permit the constitutional reform process to touch on sovereignty issues, including territorial definition, " McCormack said during a daily press briefing.
"President Chen's fulfillment of his commitment will be a test of leadership, reliability and statesmanship as well as his ability to protect Taiwan's interests, its relations with others and to maintain peace and stability in the Strait," he said.
Chen said in the interview that Taiwan should discuss the idea of a "Second Republic" to free the country of what he called an "absurd and unrealistic" definition of sovereignty without provoking China.
He said that under a "Second Republic," the current Constitution would be frozen, and a new constitution would be written.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
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BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
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