The Presidential Office yesterday said it had no new information about an arms package Taiwan has requested from Washington.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) made the remarks at a press conference and said that the media should ask the Ministry of National Defense for further information about the details of the arms deal.
“President Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] has made it clear on several occasions that while both sides of the Taiwan Strait are working toward reconciliation, the country must have a strong army,” Wang said. “The president’s remarks indicate that we attach great importance to national defense and we are determined to defend ourselves.”
Wang made the remarks in response to media inquiries after a Chinese-language China Times report yesterday that quoted “reliable sources” as saying that prospects looked gloomy that the US government would notify Congress to approve the “seven plus one” arms procurement package before Congress goes into recess by the end of this month.
The report ran counter to a remark made by Ma last month. While addressing retired generals and military leaders at the Military Officers’ Club in Taipei on Aug. 30 to mark Armed Forces Day, Ma said that all signs indicated the White House would soon ask Congress to complete legal procedures for seven items Taiwan has requested.
Meanwhile, Wang yesterday confirmed that it was necessary to draw up a national strategy plan in the long run, but the National Security Council has not yet begun the process.
Wang made the remarks in response to a United Daily News report which said yesterday that the council has been secretly drafting a national strategy plan to enshrine the fundamental principles of the country’s survival and development.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift