A top adviser to President Chen Shui-bian (
"President Chen was a little frustrated," Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (
PHOTO: REUTERS
Chen said on Aug. 3 that the ability of Taiwan's 23 million to decide their future was a "basic human right" and there was "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait.
China reacted furiously to Chen's remarks, warning that he was leading Taiwan to "disaster." Beijing has threatened to attack if the country formally declares independence or drags its feet on unification talks.
Analysts said Chen was frustrated by China's diplomatic bullying, military build-up and refusal to deal with him.
Lee said he believes the two sides will mend fences.
"President Chen has goodwill to try to improve relations," said the co-winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1986 and president of Academia Sinica, the nation's top academic institution.
"The people between Taiwan and China also have tremendous amount of goodwill toward each other," Lee said of civilian exchanges between the two sides that have boomed since detente began in the late 1980s.
"Once we have the way to communicate and try to understand each other, things will improve. I am not that pessimistic," he said without elaborating.
Chen has mellowed his pro-independence stance but a suspicious Beijing had largely ignored him.
Chinese experts on Taiwan policy say China's leaders are now debating whether they can deal with Chen at all after his boldest comments since 2000.
Chen said on Sunday that Taiwan would not be intimidated by China, but stopped short of repeating his controversial comments.
The premier said last week the government would proceed with referendum legislation only as a last resort.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also