China’s unilateral implementation of the “Anti-Secession” Law showed a failure to recognize reality and respect Taiwanese’s right to choice, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a press release on Friday, following a Chinese statement marking the 10th anniversary of the act’s promulgation on March 14, 2005.
However, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration did not call on the Chinese government to revoke the law, which authorizes the use of force against Taiwan, as it had done several times in the past.
One prominent example was the speech delivered by then-MAC minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) in Washington in 2010, when she said the law should be repealed.
It was followed by a statement by the council’s spokesperson at the time, Liu Te-hsun (劉德勳), in Taipei, who described the law as “unnecessary” in the development of cross-strait relations.
Asked how Friday’s statement differed from those in the past, a council official who requested anonymity yesterday said that the government’s position against the “Anti-Secession” Law “has already been clearly and repeatedly stated many times before.”
“Mainstream public opinion in Taiwan has reacted unfavorably toward the law. Employing non-peaceful means to resolve cross-strait issues is unacceptable to the government,” the official said.
While the law claims to promote peaceful unification, it provides a legal basis, from the Chinese perspective, to rein in Taiwanese independence and facilitate Taiwan’s annexation through the use of military force.
“In the event that the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it says.
In the press release, the council reiterated that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent sovereign country, and that the Ma government has adopted a policy of “no unification, no independence and no use of force” under the ROC Constitution to maintain the “status quo” on cross-strait relations.
The council added that the policy represents mainstream public opinion in Taiwan and serves as the basis to promote the development of peaceful and stable cross-strait relations.
On Friday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijung (張志軍) wrote a 3,000-word op-ed in the People’s Daily, in which he vowed that unification would be achieved in accordance with China’s institutionalized policy toward Taiwan, which was formulated based on a set of legislation, including the People’s Republic of China Constitution and the “Anti-Secession” Law.
Since the passage of the “Anti-Secession” Law, cross-strait relations “have undergone historic and major changes,” Zhang said.
For example, the law has frustrated the intent of separatists advocating Taiwanese independence, guided cross-strait negotiations toward the direction of unification and expedited cross-strait economic integration following the implementation of direct air and sea transport and postal service, Zhang wrote.
Zhang held up what he said has been achieved in advancing cross-strait ties after the law went into effect as a model of China’s vision to bring “rule of law” in the country.
The enactment of the law sparked a series of demonstrations and criticism in Taiwan, including the anti-“Anti-Secession Law” protest jointly organized by the then-Democratic Progressive Party government and more than 500 civic organizations, with hundreds of thousands of people participating in the demonstration in Taipei.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater