Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) corresponded with each other yesterday, with the former sending Ma a message congratulating him on his election as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, and the latter responding with a courtesy reply.
The two expressed the hope that both sides of the Taiwan Strait would work to create peace.
China sent a similar message when Ma was elected as KMT chairman in 2005. He served as chairman from 2005 to 2007 but resigned after being indicted for alleged misuse of his special allowance fund as Taipei mayor.
In Hu’s congratulatory message yesterday, he referred to Ma as “Mr” Hu said he hoped the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would continue to push for the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and further deepen mutual trust.
Hu also said he hoped to see the two parties make unceasing efforts to work for the well-being of the people and “create the great renaissance of the Chinese nation.”
Addressing “Mr Hu” as the General Secretary of the CCP, Ma said in his response to Hu that because of the joint efforts of the KMT and the CCP, cross-strait ties have walked down the road of peaceful development, stability and mutual prosperity based on the so-called “1992 consensus.”
Such a development not only met the expectations of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, but also won the recognition of the international community, Ma said in his message to Hu.
Ma urged the two sides to comply with the will of the people and make efforts to consolidate peace in the Taiwan Strait. He also called on both sides to restructure regional stability and advance cross-strait development and prosperity under the 16-word principle.
The 16-word principle referred to his proposal of “looking at the reality, building mutual trust, putting aside disputes and creating a win-win situation.”
While Hu referred to himself as the CCP General Secretary, in his reply Ma did not mention any title. The date on Ma’s message also left out the country’s name which, in general practice, precedes the year, month and day. In Ma’s message, it showed only “98 (2009) July 27.”
KMT Spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮), who read out the two statements, said the Presidential Office said that this had been common practice for Ma since he took office in May last year. Besides, it was easy to figure out that 98 referred to the Republic of China calendar, he said.
Lee irked reporters when he declined to show the two statements and denied this had anything to do with Beijing.
Meanwhile, at a separate setting yesterday, a number of KMT legislators said the low voting turnout in Sunday’s chairmanship election could be the result of the Ma administration’s poor performance.
Ma, the sole candidate, received 285,354 of 303,987 votes, or 93.87 percent. Turnout was 56.95 percent.
KMT Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) said the turnout reflected the dissatisfaction of many members with the government’s administrative performance.
“This is alarming,” Chou said.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟), who represents the constituency in Hsinchu which had the lowest turnout (31.88 percent) in the chairmanship election, said the turnout showed that Ma had hurt the feelings of the party’s Hakka members by being disrespectful to outgoing KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), who is a Hakka, during his chairmanship campaign.
But Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) disagreed, saying Ma had won the support of a great number of party members in the election.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS