Responding to media coverage of a Chinese air-raid drill, President Chen Shui-bian (
"Those routine drills are planned over the long term and have nothing to do with my recent talks," Chen told reporters just one day after China held a high-profile air-raid drill in Shanghai.
"It's impossible for [China] to quickly arrange the drill only a few days after I made some remarks on Aug. 3," the president said. "I hope all my fellow countrymen will neither be intimidated or scared."
Chen added that some local media exaggerated the importance of Shanghai's drill purposely in order to mislead Taiwanese into thinking that China is showing its anger with the president's recent comments.
"The people of the country should be united, and the public should not be split or influenced by regional media or certain individuals who have their own agendas," Chen urged.
"[The drills] have nothing to do with A-bian's comments," Chen said, referring to his remarks on Aug. 3 in which he said there was "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait and a referendum law should be passed.
Chen also stressed that local media have the responsibility to tell people the truth about the drill and repeated his call for Taiwan to walk its own path.
"Taiwan should go its own way and create its own future," the president said, "and we should stick to our path of pursuing freedom, democracy, human rights and peace. We should never back away from our own ideals."
His Aug. 3 remarks infuriated Beijing, which has threatened to attack Taiwan if it declares independence or drags its feet on unification talks.
Shanghai officials said the drill had nothing to do with cross-strait relations, saying similar drills have been held in Shanghai on Aug. 13 for the past three years.
"We started preparations for the drill at the beginning of this year. The timing coincided with the cross-strait issue but it was absolutely not held because of it," said an official at Shanghai's Chang Ning district government.
Still, Taiwan media accorded the event blanket coverage and many news analyses and commentaries drew a direct causal relation between China's drill and the president's talk on Aug 3.
A Taiwan television anchorperson said the drills were part of mock missile attacks on Shanghai by an unidentified island seeking independence from China.
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