Chances are slim that the leaders of Taiwan and China will meet on the sidelines of an APEC forum after a Chinese official said that such a meeting need not take place at international events.
Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing (范麗青) made the statement at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.
She was asked about her views on commentaries in Taiwanese media suggesting that next year’s APEC leaders’ summit to be held in Beijing would be a good setting for a meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
“Since a meeting between the top leaders on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is a matter for Chinese people themselves to tackle, it does not need to take place on an international occasion,” Fan said.
She said that China has for years advocated a meeting between the leaders of the two sides and adopted an active, open attitude toward any proposal that could contribute to the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
As for Taiwan’s participation in the annual summit, Fan said the issue should be handled in accordance with APEC protocols and regulations.
Because of Beijing’s objections, Taiwan’s president has been barred from attending the APEC leaders’ summit in person and instead has to name an envoy to attend the meeting on their behalf each year.
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
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
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
RSS