Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) not to make the nation’s diplomacy a matter of “partisan bickering.”
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his final New Year’s address as president, yesterday said that his “viable diplomacy” has “earned fruitful achievements and won the respect of the international community,” adding that if Taiwan “reverts to the ‘scorched-earth diplomacy’ undertaken eight years ago, history would repeat itself, with the nation’s allies severing diplomatic ties and the nation being blocked from international organizations.”
Tsai — who was in Taoyuan yesterday for a New Year’s flag-raising event where she again refused to sing “our party” during the national anthem — said the nation’s diplomacy should not be divided along party lines, but needs to be an affair that all Taiwanese put effort into.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
“[I] hope that [diplomatic affairs] will not become an issue manipulated for partisan debate,” she said.
Tsai said that the so-called “scorched-earth diplomacy” was a label coined by the KMT, while neither she nor the DPP had ever used it.
“[The DPP’s] attitude toward foreign affairs is proactive, aiming to broaden Taiwan’s [international] space and helping Taiwan’s diplomatic efforts gain recognition from the international community. This is what the DPP is going to do and something we hope we can all do together,” Tsai said.
It was not the first time that the president, or his spokesperson, had claimed that a DPP victory in the presidential election would trigger a diplomatic crisis, with KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) claiming that 18 diplomatic allies would switch recognition from Taipei to Beijing should Tsai prevail.
However, an investigative report published yesterday by Storm Media said that Ma was briefed by National Security Bureau Director-General Yang Kuo-chiang (楊國強) as early as September last year on what Yang learned at a conference attended by Central American intelligence chiefs.
In his report, Yang said that the possibility of China launching a diplomatic war over Taiwan’s allies in Central and South America was slim, as Beijing believes “cross-strait benefits outweigh the diplomatic benefits [it could gain] in Central and South America.”
“Therefore, there would not be an ‘avalanche’ of cases of severance of diplomatic relations” if the DPP wins the presidency, the report said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is reportedly displeased over Alex Tsai’s allegations of diplomatic allies “waiting to establish ties with China.”
“[The ministry] does not know where he [Alex Tsai] got the information, but it is absolutely false,” it said.
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