President Chen Shui-bian (
Speaking in an interview with CNN last week, which aired yesterday noon in Taiwan on the station's Talk Asia program, Chen said that he and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu (
"If it were not for that incident, we would have garnered more support in the rally organized on the eve of the election," Chen said.
assassination
The president was referring to the attempted assassination on March 19, 2004, in which bullets grazed Chen's stomach and hit Lu's knee while the pair was campaigning in Tainan.
Chen defeated the joint ticket of then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
Chen said in the interview that he was very upset upon learning that the rest of the campaign rallies would be canceled because of the incident.
"I honestly did not know I was hit by a bullet and needed medical care. I thought it was firecrackers," he said.
While some have argued that the assassination attempt was staged, Chen said he and Lu did not need to put their lives in danger, as they were sure they would win.
"I believe such an assumption was cooked up by those who refuse to accept defeat," he said.
Chen said that while Taiwan's transition from authoritarianism to a democracy has been bumpy and shaky, Taiwanese are willing to face the challenges and make sacrifices if necessary.
a normal country
As the national leader, Chen vowed to turn Taiwan into a normal country, adding that Taiwan has yet to achieve normalization because the Constitution did not obtain the approval of the people.
"The 23 million people of Taiwan need a new constitution that is timely, relevant and viable," he said.
Chen said he was pleased to see that more than 60 percent of the public now identify themselves as Taiwanese, compared with 36 percent when he was first elected as president in 2000. He added that he would like to see the figure rise to 70 percent or 75 percent before he leaves office next year.
Describing the "state affairs fund" case as a political issue, Chen said Taiwan was experiencing the growing pains of an evolving democracy but he believed the judicial system would eventually prove his innocence.
When asked whether he would be willing to testify and defend himself in court after leaving office, Chen said "absolutely," because everybody must respect and follow the law.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS