Taiwanese-independence advocates yesterday accused former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of breaking national security laws and called on the judiciary to investigate after his statement that “China will wage a battle, which will be quick and will be the last battle for Taiwan.”
Ma showed his true colors “as a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party” in his speech on Monday when he said the “first battle will be the last,” Taiwan Republic Office (台灣國辦公室) director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵) said.
“Ma is threatening Taiwanese by claiming that Beijing will launch a quick invasion of Taiwan, but that the US military will have no time and no chance to come to Taiwan’s aid,” Chen said.
Photo: Jason Pan, Taipei Times
Chen and other protesters called Ma “a bootlicker” of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and a colluder with an enemy state, seeking to sell out Taiwan.
At the protest in front of Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan Republic Office members performed a skit in which Chen, wearing a Ma mask, acted as if he were committing hara-kiri.
“We are asking Ma to perform hara-kiri as a public apology to our citizens for selling out Taiwan... We cannot accept Ma’s talk of capitulation — and that coming from a former president, who is now a propagandist for China and coerces the Taiwanese to surrender to China without a fight,” Chen said.
Members from the Taiwan Independence Party (建國黨), the Nation Building Forum (建國廣場) and a youth group advocating Taiwan’s liberation from colonial powers also joined the protest.
The demonstrators called on KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) to revoke Ma’s party membership and urged the judiciary to investigate Ma for colluding with China to sabotage Taiwan’s national security, breaching the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and possible leaking of military secrets.
“Ma’s talks show that he has no comprehension of modern warfare, but he is undermining the confidence of Taiwan’s military and its ability to defend our homeland, while wrecking Taiwan’s chances of forming an alliance with other democratic nations to counter China’s warmongering and hegemony in the Asia-Pacific,” Chen said.
“We are not surprised at all because Ma — coming from the KMT one-party state — has fought democratic values and people’s right to self-determination and is always seen cowering in the face of Chinese aggression,” he added.
Other protesters presented documents and news reports in which the former president and KMT lawmakers stalled legislative sessions 69 times from 2008 to 2016, eventually blocking three major arms deals with the US.
During Ma’s presidency, he tried to end the development of indigenous missiles at Taiwan’s top weapons research institutes, they added.
Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) of the Democratic Progressive Party said that Ma speaks as if he is the head of a Chinese state media outlet.
“Now Ma is showing the world where his loyalties lie, and since he left the presidency, Ma has acted as a propagandist for China and no longer pretends to act in Taiwan’s best interests,” Wang said.
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan. The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on