Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to prioritize cross-strait affairs after taking over as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman and use the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cross-strait forums to arrange a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Ma announced at a press conference on Wednesday that he would run in the KMT chairman election on July 26 to push for closer cooperation between the government and the party. Ma is a shoo-in for the position after KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said at the same setting that he would not run for re-election.
Hau said cooperation between the government and the party was crucial, but the most important mission for Ma as the next KMT chairman would be to push cross-strait relations.
“The KMT-CCP forum has been the platform for leaders of the two sides to meet and reach consensus on cross-strait affairs,” Hau said yesterday when meeting reporters at Taipei City Hall.
“I believe cross-strait development will make more progress if President Ma attends the KMT-CCP forum in his capacity as KMT chairman,” he said.
When asked whether or not he would attend the KMT-CCP forum and meet Hu after taking over as KMT chairman, Ma said on Wednesday that he would not address the issue until formally taking over the position in September.
Wu will attend this year’s KMT-CCP forum next month.
Ma will formally take over the chairmanship on Sept. 12 and serve until September 2013.
Local media outlets speculated that a Ma-Hu meeting could be held in 2012 as Hu’s term as CCP chairman will end in the same year and a KMT vice president would attend the next forum.
KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) yesterday urged the president to plan a meeting with Hu as soon as possible after becoming KMT chairman, adding that a meeting could promote “healthy cross-strait interaction.”
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said on Wednesday that Ma wanted to use the chairman position to promote quick unification with China.
China’s China Daily reported yesterday that “the prospects of the highest-level talks between the mainland and Taiwan” had soared with Ma set to become the KMT chairman.
“Although Ma has to visit Beijing in his capacity as KMT chairman and talk to Hu in his role as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the unprecedented meeting will signal ‘great reconciliation’ between the mainland and Taiwan,” it said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG, RICH CHANG AND STAFF WRITER
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS