The Presidential Office yesterday rebutted former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) argument that the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) do not belong to Taiwan, saying it is an unquestionable fact that the Republic of China (ROC) holds sovereignty over the archipelago.
“Any remarks denying our sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands constitute an act of humiliating the nation and forfeiting its sovereignty. They will not be accepted by the ROC government, nor its people,” Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen (陳以信) said.
Chen said it has been the government’s consistent stance that the Diaoyutai Islands have been an inherent part of the ROC since 1683.
“Our claims of sovereignty over the islands are based solidly on their location, geological composition, relevant historical evidence and international law, and are therefore cannot be disputed,” Chen said.
Chen was referring to Lee’s remarks in his latest book, titled Last Days: My Life’s Journey and the Roadmap of Taiwan’s Democratization, in which he wrote: “The Diaoyutai archipelago not being a part of Taiwan’s territory is an indubitable fact.”
“Those politicians who have blindly followed others and claimed the islands as belonging to Taiwan are just ignorant and lacking in common sense,” Lee wrote in the book, which was released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to express her stance on Lee’s claims in his book that “cross-strait relations are between two nations.”
“From the beginning of her presidential campaign to now, Tsai has failed to explain her cross-strait policies and has been evasive on issues regarding the ROC’s national identity,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said in a news release.
Lin said the public might have been willing to put up with Tsai’s ambiguous attitude and empty rhetoric before the elections, but as the nation’s next head of state, she is now obligated to let the public know her real thoughts.
Tsai was believed to be a champion of Lee’s “special state-to-state” theory, as she was a key figure at the National Security Council when the former president tendered the idea in 1999, Lin said.
“Now that Tsai has been elected president and the DPP is set to gain complete control over the nation, there is no longer room for Tsai’s position to remain oblique and for her to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the issue,” Lin said.
The president-elect should take the opportunity to assuage the public’s concerns by elucidating her cross-strait policy and stance on Taiwan’s national identity, Lin added.
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
RSS