Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) yesterday pledged to continue cross-strait negotiations under the principle of the so-called “1992 consensus” as he was re-elected to serve another three-year term.
Chiang, re-elected by the foundation’s new board of directors, promoted the government’s efforts in resuming cross-strait talks since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office three years ago and said Taiwan and China would continue to work together and seek peace across the Taiwan Strait.
“I had called for the resumption of cross-strait negotiations and the long-term development of peaceful cross-strait relations when I first took over as chairman in 2008 and now I can proudly say we have made great achievements in cross-strait ties,” Chiang said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Since 2008, the foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits have conducted seven rounds of negotiations and signed 16 agreements, including the -Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed last year.
Chiang yesterday said the “1992 consensus,” which refers to what the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) says is a mutual understanding between the two sides of the Strait that there is only one China, with each side free to interpret what that means, has improved cross-strait relations in recent years and would continue to serve as a solid foundation for future cross-strait talks.
Former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起), who came up with the term “1992 consensus” when he served as Mainland Affairs Council minister in 2000, was appointed as a board member yesterday, sparking speculation about his role in leading political negotiations between Taiwan and China in the future.
Su yesterday dismissed the speculation as sheer assumption, saying that he took the position to assist the foundation with related affairs as a scholar.
“It’s over-speculation … My role in the SEF is very simple, and I don’t have any special missions. I think people are over-interpreting the position,” he said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS