Taiwan has snubbed China's plan to link up the two countries with a highway or a tunnel under the Taiwan Strait, urging Beijing to be "more practical" in improving cross-Strait ties.
"From the academic point of view, we can discuss this. But these `cross-Strait projects' are extremely difficult, costly and time-consuming," Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Johnnason Liu (劉德勳) told reporters on Tuesday.
Liu said that what separates Taiwan and China is not the Taiwan Strait, but the difference in the two sides' social systems and that only when China has adopted democracy can Taiwan and China be truly think about unification.
"The problem between Taiwan and China is not the sea or transport. It is system and values. The biggest obstacle is one has democracy and the other has dictatorship," he said.
"The two sides should discuss more practical issues, instead of wasting time on political propaganda," he added.
In recent years, China has floated the idea of extending its national highway network to Taiwan by building a dam and filling in the 120km-wide Taiwan Strait, or building a tunnel under the strait.
Taipei has dismissed the ideas as political propaganda and part of China's scheme to forcibly achieve China-Taiwan unification without the approval of Taiwan's people.
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
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