President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in a recent interview with the German magazine Internationale Politik that he did not believe a cross-strait peace agreement was possible as long as China has 1,300 missiles aimed at Taiwan and refuses to retract its threat of force against the nation.
The bimonthly, published by the German Council on Foreign Affairs, printed an interview by Gottfried-Karl Kindermann of Munich University with Ma, titled “Cautious Approach,” in its current issue. Stressing the difference in political systems and social norms, Ma told Kindermann that in resolving cross-strait problems, not only historical factors, but also political reality and the feelings of the Taiwanese people must be taken into consideration.
He said the right way should be to build mutual trust and solve problems in a democratic manner on the basis of equal status and dignity.
The Chinese government must recognize and respect Taiwan’s democratic system, Ma said.
Regarding the possibility that in his capacity as chairman of the governing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), he could meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Ma said that such a meeting would be meaningful only if Taiwanese reach consensus over it.
“So far, the Taiwanese people still have different opinions on the tempo of developing bilateral relations,” he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
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
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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