Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday that she hopes to present her new book on what she describes as "Taiwan's soft power" to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Lu made the remarks at the launch of her book, Soft Power: Vision for a New Era at the Presidential Office.
She said the book is a compilation of her English-language speeches that celebrate the nation's "excellence in human rights, democracy, peace, technological progress and love," or what she terms the "soft power" of Taiwan.
Expressing the hope that the book can be sent to Hu, Lu urged the Chinese leader to develop "soft power" by taking care of the lives of China's 1.3 billion people.
Lu also urged Beijing not to use its "double-handed" approach of using culture as a facade to cover up its hegemonic ambitions, for example through the setting up of "Confucian Institutes" and Chinese schools around the world.
Her book shows that Taiwanese people, through their wisdom, are pursuing sustainable development after overcoming poverty and living through authoritarian regimes, she said.
Organizing one national referendum and 26 recall elections targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators could cost NT$1.62 billion (US$55.38 million), the Central Election Commission said yesterday. The cost of each recall vote ranges from NT$16 million to NT$20 million, while that of a national referendum is NT$1.1 billion, the commission said. Based on the higher estimate of NT$20 million per recall vote, if all 26 confirmed recall votes against KMT legislators are taken into consideration, along with the national referendum on restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, the total could be as much as NT$1.62 billion, it said. The commission previously announced
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday welcomed NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s remarks that the organization’s cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners must be deepened to deter potential threats from China and Russia. Rutte on Wednesday in Berlin met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of Germany’s accession to NATO. He told a post-meeting news conference that China is rapidly building up its armed forces, and the number of vessels in its navy outnumbers those of the US Navy. “They will have another 100 ships sailing by 2030. They now have 1,000 nuclear warheads,” Rutte said, adding that such
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The cosponsors of a new US sanctions package targeting Russia on Thursday briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation and said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions regarding Taiwan. The bill backed by US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations such as China and India, which account for about 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade, the bankroll of much of its war effort. Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press
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