Comments by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on cross-strait issues were “interesting” and “constructive,” and Washington looks forward to hearing more from her, a senior US official said on Monday.
US Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asia Evan Medeiros said he follows what Tsai has to say about cross-strait issues very closely.
“I thought her recent comments were quite interesting and quite constructive, and we look forward to hearing more from her about what her approach is all about,” Medeiros said during a briefing on the US visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Tsai, who is the DPP’s candidate for next year’s presidential election, has said that her party’s basic principle in handling cross-strait relations is “maintaining the status quo.”
Tsai also said she is confident of her ability to handle cross-strait ties well and would try to “avoid accidents” and would not provoke “contradictions, confrontations or conflicts.”
As in the previous presidential campaign four years ago, when she was also the DPP’s candidate, Tsai is expected to visit Washington in the run-up to the presidential election in January next year.
Regarding a planned visit to China by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Medeiros said the US supports any cross-strait interactions that are conducted at a pace and in a manner acceptable to both sides and in a way that ensures continued cross-strait stability.
He noted that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) wrote an opinion piece in the People’s Daily in which he talked about being open to interactions and conversations with all circles of Taiwanese society.
“We think that’s an important, constructive step as Taiwan enters into its election period,” Medeiros said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS