President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did not step out of the plane during a brief stopover in the US state of Alaska on his way to Central America yesterday -- a gesture described by accompanying Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers as a "silent protest" against the US.
Media reports have said that Washington has refused to allow Chen to set foot in the continental US or stay overnight during the transit stops as a way of expressing its displeasure with Taiwan's plan to push for a referendum on applying to join the UN using the name "Taiwan."
During a 50-minute transit in Alaska yesterday, Presidential Office spokesman David Lee (
protest
However, DPP Legislator Tang Bi-a (
Chen received honorary chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan William Brown and Alaska Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on board, with a sticker that read "UN for Taiwan" on his shirt and another one on his seat, Tang said.
Chen was quoted as saying in his meeting with Brown that he found the transit in Alaska "inconvenient, uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, and [felt] unrespected."
Taiwan will not criticize the US, Chen said, but the US' treatment of the delegation should not be viewed as a punishment for him alone but for the nation's 23 million citizens.
insult?
In response, Brown was quoted as saying that it was not the US' intention to insult Chen.
Chen told Brown that if the US was willing, it could have sent a special delegation from the defense or state departments to Taiwan for a dialogue to resolve differences.
Prior to his departure from Taipei yesterday for a three-nation visit to Central America, which includes brief stopovers in Alaska en route to and from the region, Chen reaffirmed at the Taoyuan International Airport his resolve to safeguard Taiwanese's right to hold a referendum on the nation's bid to join the UN.
Chen said Taiwan would continue to communicate with the US to try to sort out their differences on the referendum issue, adding that he did not want the issue to complicate his US transit plan and blur the focus of his Central America visit.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods