Former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) yesterday attributed China’s rejection of a proposed meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last year to Ma’s insistence on holding the meeting at the APEC summit in Beijing.
Ma’s insistence that the APEC summit would be the best venue for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart reflected how APEC’s membership is not predicated on the notion of sovereign nation states, but economic identities, King said in a radio interview, apparently suggesting that the meeting would therefore circumvent issues of sovereignty and equal status.
China rejected Ma’s proposal because Beijing was dissatisfied with his offer to meet with Xi at an international forum, King said.
Asked whether the rejection was related to the resignation of former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) over charges of leaking confidential information to China, King said that while cross-strait relations appeared to be facing a bottleneck, it was absolutely unrelated to Chang’s case.
Ma’s achievements in improving cross-strait ties have gained wide recognition with US think tank members, academics and officials, who have praised his performance in this regard, King said.
Despite his being labeled “pro-China” and accused of “selling out Taiwan,” Ma’s stance on a meeting with Xi never changed, King added.
Asked if there are any other windows of opportunity for a Ma-Xi meeting, King said that the president would only propose such an encounter when the advantages of doing so outweigh the disadvantages and it would be beneficial to the nation and cross-strait relations.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods