Independent presidential candidate James Soong (
Meeting with Soong yesterday, AIT chairman Richard Bush reportedly said the US administration would abide by the Taiwan Relations Act, and provide Taiwan with appropriate defense capability.
The meeting was the first of several visits that Bush will be paying Taiwan's presidential candidates.
After a breakfast meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Chen Chien-jen (
Bush made no remarks after the meeting, preferring to save them until the end of his visit.
Soong told reporters he had explained to Bush that Taiwanese find unification unacceptable at this point, and that any change in the status quo should be in accordance with the will of the people of Taiwan.
When asked about president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) two-states model, Soong said: "The Republic of China is an independent sovereignty," and not a local government of the People's Republic of China.
On the same day, KMT legislator Yang Chi-hsiung (
Yang said Soong Chen-yuan (
Yang questioned whether Soong had given his son the money for investment, and if so, whether he had paid any gift tax.
In response, Soong challenged Yang to come up with concrete evidence of any alleged illegal transactions.
The China Coast Guard yesterday said it had “expelled” a Japanese ship from waters around the Diaoyutais (釣魚台). The uninhabited islands — which are known as the Senkakus in Japan — are claimed by Taipei and Beijing, but are administered by Tokyo. China Coast Guard spokesman Liu Dejun (劉德軍) said that a Japanese fishing vessel had “illegally entered territorial waters” around the islands from Tuesday to Wednesday. The coast guard “took necessary control measures in accordance with the law, warned [the ship] and expelled it,” Liu said in an online statement. “The Diaoyu and affiliated islands are China’s inherent territory and we urge the
OUT OF TAIPEI? Agencies have been told to formulate a response that would ‘uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty’ after South Africa ordered Taiwan to move its office The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not rule out demanding that South Africa move its representative office outside of Taipei in retaliation for its ultimatum that Taiwan relocate its representative office to Johannesburg, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. South Africa on Oct. 7 issued an ultimatum via e-mail to Taiwan to move its representative office out of the country’s administrative capital of Pretoria by the end of this month, adding that the move was “unnegotiable,” the source said. The ministry said that it would work out all possible responses based on the principle of reciprocity if South Africa “insists
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm named Trami at 2am yesterday, and is projected to move west-northwest toward waters east of Luzon Island, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Trami’s center was 700km east of Manila, or 1,180km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving in a northwesterly direction. It was carrying maximum sustained winds of 65kph, with gusts of up to 90kph, CWA data showed. The weather agency forecast the center of the storm would be over waters 470km east-northeast of Manila or 820km southeast of Oluanpi at 8am today, and urged ships
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday temporarily shut down the nation’s nuclear energy generation as the state-run utility started regular maintenance on the remaining reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant for 41 days. The No. 2 reactor of the nation’s only active nuclear plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) is set to be decommissioned next year. The No. 1 reactor has been offline since July. The shutdown is to perform equipment maintenance and fuel replacement in preparation for the power plant’s next operating cycle, Taipower said in a statement. With support from other energy sources, Taipower would ensure sufficient power supply