President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said his remark that Taiwan would “never” ask the US to fight for Taiwan in a war was made because he was confident there would be no war in the Taiwan Strait during his presidency.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) quoted Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, as saying after the party’s closed-door Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday that he sought to turn Taiwan from a “troublemaker” to a peacemaker.
“The President has the utmost confidence in peace across the Taiwan Strait and believes that there will not be war while he is in office,” Su said. “If there is no war in the Taiwan Strait, we definitely will not ask the US to fight for Taiwan.”
PHOTO: CNA
Ma caused a stir when he said Taiwan would “never ask the Americans to fight for Taiwan” during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last week. Ma said in the interview that the risk for the US was at its lowest in 60 years, which he credited to his administration’s efforts to improve cross-strait relations.
Su yesterday said the Ma administration would continue to procure arms from the US to protect the country’s security and to manifest its resolve to defend itself.
“We will not let our guard down and will remain prepared against war despite cross-strait detente,” Su quoted Ma as saying.
Su said Ma also said that the reason he spoke English during the interview was because translation would have taken up too much of the interview time.
Meanwhile, the Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) criticized Ma for what it said was inviting “aggression” from China.
The group said it was “deeply concerned” about the “never” remarks made by Ma during the CNN interview.
FAPA president Bob Yang (楊英育) said Ma’s remarks were totally at odds with the basic US policy of strategic ambiguity.
Under the policy, China is meant to be left guessing at how the US would respond to an attack on Taiwan. That uncertainty was designed to act as a strong deterrent against provocative action.
“Ma’s remarks leave China with the impression that this ambiguity is removed, thereby undermining the deterrence provided by the US presence in the region,” Yang said.
In a prepared statement, Yang said: “We are clearly in favor of a peaceful resolution, but that can only be achieved if Taiwan shows the resolve to defend itself. The statement made by Ma actually invites aggression from China, which has been threatening Taiwan’s free and democratic existence for many years.
“It amounts to pre-emptive surrender by the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang [KMT] government in Taiwan,” he said.
Yang said Ma’s remarks “fly in the face” of US commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the US to maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or economic system of Taiwan.
FAPA, a US-wide organization with substantial support in the Taiwanese community, believes that it is essential for Ma to issue a clarification and to state that his administration “adheres to the basic policies on which the strong relations with the US are based.”
Yang also called on Ma to “refrain from making any moves which undermine Taiwan’s freedom, democracy and independence.”
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS