The budget for this year’s twin-city forum between Taipei and Shanghai would be frozen if China’s military aircraft and ships continue to patrol near Taiwan ahead of the event later this year, the Taipei City Council said on Monday.
Following six days of inter-party negotiations, the decision was made on Monday to budget about NT$1.3 million (US$46,903) for the annual event, on one condition.
The condition put forth by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus was that the budget should be frozen if the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to send aircraft and vessels to areas around Taiwan prior to the event’s opening.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
Taipei city councilors from the DPP and their Social Democratic Party counterpart, Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅), initially said that the budget should be scrapped entirely, but Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and New Party councilors opposed the idea.
They eventually reached a consensus and agreed to attach the condition.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hsin-yi (王欣儀) said that the party’s caucus accepted the proposal with the condition, as the PLA’s patrols near Taiwan have caused resentment.
New Party convener Pan Hwai-tzong (潘懷宗) said that the twin-city forum should be held if cross-strait relations are good at the time, and canceled if they are not.
The council is reviewing the NT$174.532 billion in expenses and NT$171.997 billion in income that the Taipei City Government has budgeted for this year.
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
SUBTLE? While Biden said the US policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan had not changed, the group targeted China and Russia without naming them Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US yesterday warned against attempts to “change the status quo by force,” as concerns grow about whether China could invade Taiwan. The issue of Taiwan loomed over a leadership meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) nations — the US, Japan, Australia and India — who stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China, although Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not targeting any one country. The four leaders said in a joint statement issued after their talks
INFORMATION LEAKED: Documents from Xinjiang purportedly showed top leaders in Beijing calling for a forceful crackdown and even orders to shoot to kill Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday held a videoconference with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet as she visited Xinjiang during a mission overshadowed by fresh allegations of Uighur abuses and fears she is being used as a public relations tool. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region as part of a years-long crackdown the US and lawmakers in other Western nations have labeled a “genocide.” China denies the allegations. Bachelet was expected to visit the cities of Urumqi and Kashgar on a six-day tour. The US
RSS