China yesterday warned Taiwan that its planned referendum this month on UN membership was putting peace between the two sides at risk.
"If the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) authorities stubbornly move down the path [to a referendum], they will pay a heavy price," Chinese parliamentary spokesman Jiang Enzhu (姜恩柱) told reporters.
Jiang called it "a serious step towards seeking de jure [legal] independence."
"If the Chen Shui-bian authorities should succeed, it will gravely undermine cross-straight relations, undermine the interests of people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits [sic] and threaten the peace and stability in the ... Straits," he said.
Jiang said that the vote on joining the UN was "tantamount" to a referendum on independence.
His comments came as he announced that China's military spending this year would rise 17.6 percent to 417.8 billion yuan (US$57.2 billion).
Jiang insisted that Beijing was committed to peacefully achieving reunification.
"But at the same time, we will make well our preparations and firmly curb the dangerous activities of Taiwan independence forces," he said. "The situation across the Taiwan Straits is at a crucial stage ... we will never permit any person under any name and in any manner to split Taiwan from China."
Taiwan, under its official name the Republic of China, lost its UN seat to the People's Republic of China in 1971 and is now recognized diplomatically by 23 countries.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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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