Democracy is not a crime and autocracy is the real “evil,” President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after China threatened to impose the death penalty in extreme cases for “diehard” supporters of Taiwanese independence.
China has made no secret of its dislike of Lai, who took office last month, saying he is a “separatist,” and staged war games shortly after his inauguration.
On Friday, China ramped up its pressure on Taiwan by issuing new legal guidelines to punish those it says support the nation’s formal independence, although Chinese courts have no jurisdiction over the democratically governed nation.
Photo: CNA
Asked about China’s move at a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Lai first reiterated his sympathy for recent flooding in southern China before responding.
“I want to stress: Democracy is not a crime; it’s autocracy that is the real evil. China has absolutely no right to sanction Taiwan’s people just because of the positions they hold. What’s more, China has no right to go after Taiwan people’s rights across borders,” he said.
According to China, anyone who does not uphold “reunification” is a Taiwanese independence supporter, Lai added.
Relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would become “more and more alienated” if China does not “face up to the existence of the Republic of China [Taiwan’s official name], and conduct exchanges and dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected and legitimate government,” Lai said.
“This is the correct way to enhance the well-being of people on both sides” of the Strait, he said.
Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party has long asserted Taiwanese sovereignty, and Beijing has not conducted top-level communications with Taipei since 2016, when former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) came to power.
The government said that since Thursday, there has been a sharp increase in Chinese military flights, as Beijing carried out a “joint combat readiness patrol” near the nation.
From Thursday to Sunday, Taiwan said it detected 115 Chinese military aircraft operating nearby, getting as close at 31 nautical miles (57 km) from Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip.
Taipei has said that for the past four years China has carried out regular military activity around Taiwan as part of a “gray zone” pressure campaign.
Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercises next month would aim to mimic actual combat as closely as possible given the rapidly rising “enemy threat” from China, a senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Additional reporting by AFP
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
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,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘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
RSS