President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday reiterated that cross-strait relations are not state-to-state, and that China cannot be considered by Taiwan as a foreign country.
If cross-strait ties were state-to-state, there would be no need for the Mainland Affairs Council, and relations would be handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Ma said at a meeting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), of which he is chairman.
However, issues relating to China are also not purely domestic, Ma said, because exports to China are charged import duties and permits are needed for Taiwanese seeking entry into China and Chinese coming to Taiwan.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
These conditions demonstrate that Taiwan and China are in a special relationship, Ma said, reiterating a position that drew criticism when he mentioned in his Double Ten National Day speech last month.
In that address, the president said “cross-strait relations are not international relations,” which opposition politicians said signaled the possibility of unification with China and represented a concession to Beijing.
Ma said yesterday that his views were supported by the Republic of China Constitution, which he said does not allow for “two Chinas,” “one China and one Taiwan,” or an independent Taiwan.
He also cited the Constitution in defending his definition of the cross-strait relationship as one in which Taiwan and China do not deny each other’s authority to govern, but do not recognize each other’s sovereignty.
That definition of cross-strait ties “did not begin when we took office, but was settled when the Constitution was amended more than 20 years ago” and was not changed by his two predecessors, former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Ma said.
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
ASEAN BATTLEGROUND: Japan and Australia could be drawn into Pacific tensions as China sets its sights on the Diaoyutai Islands and further beyond the first island chain Tensions between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to intensify, the National Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, recommending that Taiwan continue to emphasize its shared values and interests to encourage resistance to Chinese aggression. US commitments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to continue unabated despite the war in Ukraine, as Beijing takes advantage of the conflict to expand its influence in the region, the agencies said in reports delivered to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Sunday, ahead of a hearing yesterday on regional developments and trends. Although Russia’s invasion of
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said
RSS