Bejing yesterday dismissed a proposal by members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to soften the party’s stance on Taiwanese independence, saying it did not go far enough.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said the only right choice for the DPP that is in line with public opinion is to abandon its pro--independence position advocating the concept of one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait.
Ma was asked about the issue after a proposal by some DPP members to “freeze” the Taiwan independence clause in the party’s charter to boost the DPP’s chances in the next presidential election was briefly discussed at the DPP’s national convention on Sunday.
The proposal’s advocates argued that the independence clause, which calls for declaring a “Republic of Taiwan,” was superseded by the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future (台灣前途決議文) adopted eight years later in 1999.
The resolution sees Taiwan as already being a sovereign and independent country, with any change in the “status quo” to be decided by Taiwanese, and it also rejects the “one China principle.”
Although the resolution is seen as being more flexible than the independence clause, Ma said that even attempts within the DPP to conduct relations with China based on the resolution “will not work.”
The proposal to drop the independence clause gained little ground at the DPP convention on Sunday, with DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who presided over the proceedings, deciding to refer it to the party’s central executive committee.
Although no substantive action was taken on the proposal, Tsai made her position known on the eve of the convention.
She said in a statement that sticking to the values of Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence has become an “inherent part” of the younger generation and questioned why the party’s Taiwan independence clause should be frozen or abolished.
That statement was criticized yesterday by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who rejected what he said was Tsai’s attempt to “draw a parallel between the younger generation’s values related to individualism and the pursuit of Taiwanese independence.”
Hau, who is also vice chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), commended “many friends within the DPP” for advocating the freezing of the Taiwan independence clause, and said he hoped they would take further action.
Hau is considered one of the KMT’s most conciliatory politicians in dealing with the opposition parties.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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