Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) officials said yesterday Taiwan's cross-strait negotiator will attend the handover of Macau next month from Portugal to China, if the three principles of dignity, pragmatism and propriety are maintained.
While unable to confirm whether an invitation had been extended to Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), the officials said if China set conditions for the attendance of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman, it would prevent him from going.
When MAC vice chairman Lin Chong-pin (
There is press speculation that Koo has already been invited to the Dec. 19 handover and that China bypassed the MAC in doing so.
A local paper reported yesterday that Taiwan's representative office in Macau had already reserved a room at the Westin Hotel for Koo, and had received assurances that he would be invited.
Lin said that when China sent an invitation, Koo would have to make sure that he had the time to attend and whether the content and details of the invitation were suitable.
Koo attended the Hong Kong handover in 1997, just one year after China had conducted live missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, in the lead up to the island's first direct presidential election.
Once again relations are tense between the two sides, this time over President Lee Teng-hui's (
Since then China has actively protested Taiwan's stance, unwilling to accept what Taiwan says is its status as a legitimate democratic state which elects its own rulers.
China has continued to oppose the resumption of unification talks with Taiwan and has vetoed a trip by its top negotiator to Taiwan, scheduled for this fall
Koo recently suggested that he visited China, but Beijing's negotiator, Wang Daohan (汪1D2[), head of the Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, said this was not possible until Taiwan rejected its "state to state" pronouncement.
Taiwan argues that it has not revised its constitution, or laws, and that it has merely set out its negotiating position for unification with China.
This, it says, which will give it the dignity and parity it deserves.
Meanwhile, Lin also denounced the acts of Chinese fishermen yesterday, saying the taking of a Taiwanese fishing vessel off the coast of Taiwan was an act of piracy.
The Hocheng 11, based in Keelung, sent up a distress signal after it was rammed by three Chinese fishing vessels off the northern part of Taiwan early Wednesday morning, Lin said.
Local media reported the Taiwan fishing boat had been abducted to the port of Yuhuan in China's coastal Zhejiang pro-vince.
Taiwan "gravely denounces such piracy," Lin said, "We urge mainland authorities to restrain their fishing boats from illegally breaching our territorial waters."
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS