The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday called for understanding after receiving complaints about its request that a ceremony for a water supply project between Kinmen and China be postponed.
The Kinmen County Government asked the council to reconsider its request, while opposition politicians criticized the move.
The government this week asked the Kinmen County Government to delay the ceremony for the system — which is to deliver water from China’s Fujian Province to Kinmen — after Beijing pushed the East Asian Olympic Committee to strip Taichung of its right to host the East Asian Youth Games.
Beijing has been employing carrot-and-stick tactics to whitewash its attempts to squeeze Taiwan’s space for survival and development, and to undermine its national dignity and interests, the council said.
“On the one hand, it suppresses and belittles us, and on the other hand, it tries to show our people friendly gestures... This is utterly unacceptable,” it said, adding that the unveiling ceremony should be held at a more appropriate time.
Due to Kinmen’s limited water supply, the Executive Yuan in April 2013 approved a plan to allow the island to diversify its water sources, paving the way for a deal between the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits in June of that year that the Chinese province would provide water to Kinmen.
According to the deal, Kinmen is to maintain its self-sufficiency at 70 percent and will be responsible for filtering and purifying the water provided by China.
Upon completion of the project and trial operations, the Kinmen County Government and Chinese authorities reached an agreement to hold separate unveiling ceremonies on Sunday next week, one in Kinmen and one in China.
However, the MAC stepped in.
“Although it is a good thing for both sides to be working to solve Kinmen’s water problem, Beijing’s increasing suppression of Taiwan in the international arena, most notably the Games incident, has driven up [anti-China] sentiment in society and cast cross-strait relations in a negative light,” MAC Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said on Thursday.
Now is not an opportune time to hold the ceremony, Chiu said, urging Kinmen to “look at the big picture.”
Later on Thursday, Kinmen issued a statement asking the central government to reconsider its stance, saying the islands are in urgent need of water from China, because the water in its lakes and reservoirs could only sustain residents for another 118 days.
The council said that even without a ceremony, the system could still become operational as scheduled.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) called on the Democratic Progressive Party administration to refrain from punishing Taiwanese for its failure to manage cross-strait ties.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS