President Chen Shui-bian (
Speaking in an interview with CNN last week, which aired yesterday noon in Taiwan on the station's Talk Asia program, Chen said that he and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu (
"If it were not for that incident, we would have garnered more support in the rally organized on the eve of the election," Chen said.
assassination
The president was referring to the attempted assassination on March 19, 2004, in which bullets grazed Chen's stomach and hit Lu's knee while the pair was campaigning in Tainan.
Chen defeated the joint ticket of then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
Chen said in the interview that he was very upset upon learning that the rest of the campaign rallies would be canceled because of the incident.
"I honestly did not know I was hit by a bullet and needed medical care. I thought it was firecrackers," he said.
While some have argued that the assassination attempt was staged, Chen said he and Lu did not need to put their lives in danger, as they were sure they would win.
"I believe such an assumption was cooked up by those who refuse to accept defeat," he said.
Chen said that while Taiwan's transition from authoritarianism to a democracy has been bumpy and shaky, Taiwanese are willing to face the challenges and make sacrifices if necessary.
a normal country
As the national leader, Chen vowed to turn Taiwan into a normal country, adding that Taiwan has yet to achieve normalization because the Constitution did not obtain the approval of the people.
"The 23 million people of Taiwan need a new constitution that is timely, relevant and viable," he said.
Chen said he was pleased to see that more than 60 percent of the public now identify themselves as Taiwanese, compared with 36 percent when he was first elected as president in 2000. He added that he would like to see the figure rise to 70 percent or 75 percent before he leaves office next year.
Describing the "state affairs fund" case as a political issue, Chen said Taiwan was experiencing the growing pains of an evolving democracy but he believed the judicial system would eventually prove his innocence.
When asked whether he would be willing to testify and defend himself in court after leaving office, Chen said "absolutely," because everybody must respect and follow the law.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS