Premier Frank Hsieh (
"As long as it is good for Taiwan, any political change is more than welcome," Hsieh told reporters yesterday morning after delivering a speech at the Ministry of Economic Affairs' National Commerce Development Conference in Taipei.
Rumors of a Cabinet reshuffle and that Hsieh might step down are currently two of the hottest topics in the nation's political circles.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Responding to what he called Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) "praise" of his China policies, Hsieh said he was merely following the president's lead in promoting active management of cross-strait affairs.
Ma said recently that, although most Democratic Progressive Party politicians have "fallen asleep" as far as cross-strait relations are concerned, some have "stayed awake."
Although Ma did not refer to Hsieh by name, he said that it is not difficult to know who he was talking about. Hsieh has often stated the government's intention to gradually lift restrictions against China.
"My policies are simple -- this country's interests must always come first when it comes to cross-strait relations. Period," he said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
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A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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