President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday reiterated that cross-strait relations are not state-to-state, and that China cannot be considered by Taiwan as a foreign country.
If cross-strait ties were state-to-state, there would be no need for the Mainland Affairs Council, and relations would be handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Ma said at a meeting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), of which he is chairman.
However, issues relating to China are also not purely domestic, Ma said, because exports to China are charged import duties and permits are needed for Taiwanese seeking entry into China and Chinese coming to Taiwan.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
These conditions demonstrate that Taiwan and China are in a special relationship, Ma said, reiterating a position that drew criticism when he mentioned in his Double Ten National Day speech last month.
In that address, the president said “cross-strait relations are not international relations,” which opposition politicians said signaled the possibility of unification with China and represented a concession to Beijing.
Ma said yesterday that his views were supported by the Republic of China Constitution, which he said does not allow for “two Chinas,” “one China and one Taiwan,” or an independent Taiwan.
He also cited the Constitution in defending his definition of the cross-strait relationship as one in which Taiwan and China do not deny each other’s authority to govern, but do not recognize each other’s sovereignty.
That definition of cross-strait ties “did not begin when we took office, but was settled when the Constitution was amended more than 20 years ago” and was not changed by his two predecessors, former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Ma said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS