Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) not to use his Double Ten National Day speech as campaign propaganda.
“A president’s National Day speech is supposed to address the people and should be delivered from the standpoint of a head of state,” Tsai said in response to media inquiries as to whether she was worried that Ma would take advantage of the occasion to criticize her cross-strait policies.
“I believe the president would not go so far as to turn his speech into campaign propaganda,” Tsai said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Tsai made the remarks one day after Ma said during an exclusive interview with Reuters that China would not launch an attack on Taiwan “if our [cross-strait] policies are right” and that the time was “not yet ripe” for unification talks.
“A correct cross-strait policy must be one that is built on the basis of public opinion and benefiting to both sides [of the Taiwan Strait,]” Tsai said, citing her promise to maintain the “status quo,” which she said not only reflects public consensus, but would bring the greatest benefit to both sides.
“This should be the policy,” she added.
Separately, Taiwan Brain Trust founder Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) said that if Tsai wins next year’s election, she would most likely adopt a proactive peaceful diplomatic strategy, which would involve the nation taking a stance when China poses a danger to other Asian countries and lodging a formal protest if necessary.
“From the aspect of regional security, Taiwan and Japan are integral to each other. More importantly is that the nation must abandon [Ma’s] policy of diplomatic truce or it could gradually lose its presence in Asia,” Koo told a morning press conference in Taipei.
In other matters, Tsai said a reported Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) plan to revoke the party membership of three of its members who last month attended Tsai campaign events was faulty, adding that the KMT leadership should engage in self-reflection on what has gone wrong and explore areas requiring reform.
Whether the KMT resorts to party discipline to handle the issue is an internal matter for the party, Tsai said.
Asked if the planned seating arrangement at the National Day ceremony might make her feel cornered, Tsai said she respects the organizer’s arrangements, since it is natural for the ruling party to invite as many people as possible to the annual event.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is Double Ten National Day celebrations committee chairman, on Thursday said that Tsai’s seat in the celebration would be between KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and People First Party (PFP) presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜).
KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) is to sit directly behind Tsai, Wang said.
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:
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