Taiwan should abandon its “hallucinations” about independence, as any push toward that outcome would be “poison,” Chinese state-run media said, following the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) landslide win in Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections.
DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won 56 percent of the vote to sweep aside her main rival, Chinese Nationlist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫).
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Saturday said that Beijing’s policy toward Taiwan would not change because of the election results and that it would continue its adherence to the so-called “1992 consensus” and its opposition to Taiwan independence.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Xinhua news agency said any move toward independence would act like “poison” and cause Taiwan to perish.
“If there is no peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s new authority will find the sufferings of the people it wishes to resolve on the economy, livelihood and its youth will be as useless as looking for fish in a tree,” it said.
The Global Times, published by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, said in an op-ed that if Tsai’s administration sought to “cross the red line” the way that former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did, Taiwan would “meet a dead end.”
“We hope Tsai can lead the DPP out of the hallucinations of Taiwanese independence, and contribute to the peaceful and common development between Taiwan and the mainland,” it added.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that matters relating to Taiwan were an internal matter for China.
“There is only ‘one China’ in the world, the mainland and Taiwan both belong to one China, and China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will not brook being broken up,” the ministry said.
In Taipei, the Mainland Affairs Council called on China to respect the results of the presidential and legislative elections.
The elections demonstrate the mature development of Taiwan’s democracy, the council said in a press release on Saturday night, adding that all sectors in Taiwan and China should respect the choices of Taiwanese voters and its democratic system, and continue to promote the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
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
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
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