Taiwan will never accept Beijing’s attempts to undermine its sovereignty, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its National Day celebrations in Beijing vowed to achieve unification with Taiwan.
The CCP’s statement was not conducive to peaceful cross-strait relations, the council said.
The event, hosted by the Chinese State Council, featured Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強), the other five CCP Politburo Standing Committee members and Vice President Wang Qishan (王岐山), as well as 500 guests from China and abroad.
Photo: REUTERS
Taiwanese based in China also attended the ceremony, Xinhua news agency said.
Li greeted “people of all ethnicities” in China, and extended “warmest regards” to “compatriots of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas.”
With regard to cross-strait relations, Li said it is imperative to implement the general strategies of the CPP to resolve the “Taiwan issue.”
China seeks to maintain and uphold the “one China” principle and the “1992 consensus” to oppose the “secession” of Taiwan, which is promoted from within Taiwan and by foreign entities seeking to meddle with China’s domestic affairs, Li said.
The council said the statement was an attempt to undermine the legitimacy and sovereignty of Taiwan.
“We will never accept such ideas,” it said.
The government is assessing whether Taiwanese attended the event, and urges Taiwanese not to become mouthpieces of the CCP and undermine Taiwan’s national interests, the council said.
Neither side of the Taiwan Strait “belongs” to the other, it said.
The council called on the CCP to respect the choices made by Taiwanese, saying that the international community strongly opposes Beijing’s attempts to disturb peace and the “status quo” across the Strait.
China’s National Day marks the anniversary of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949, before the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government retreated to Taiwan.
China Central Television (CCTV) wished its followers on Sina Weibo a happy National Day, posting a picture with an “I Love You, China” slogan.
CELEBRITIES
The picture was quickly shared by the official social media accounts of China-friendly Taiwanese celebrities, including Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), Rainie Yang (楊丞琳), Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), Jiro Wang (汪東城) and Janine Chang (張鈞甯), who added the phrase: “Best wishes for our fatherland, may it prosper and be strong.”
Lin’s post came after she in August was criticized by Chinese social media users after she did not repost a picture with the slogan “There is only one China” that was originally posted on the CCTV Web site in response to a Taiwan visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The so-called “1992 consensus” — a term that former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying