Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Tuesday said that Taiwan must not take sides in the US presidential election, adding that the nation’s security has to be its top priority amid a confrontation between the US and China.
“Taiwan must adhere to its own position in the face of the confrontation between the US and China. Taiwan’s national interest must be its first concern and cross-strait peace is the most important issue,” Chu said in response to media queries for comments after attending a video conference on US-China-Taiwan ties and the US presidential election hosted by Shelley Rigger, a professor at Davidson College.
Chu said he is sure that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is fully aware of the danger posed by Taiwan siding with either candidate in the election and warned that to do so would risk catastrophe.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
US academics taking part in the meeting also urged Taiwan not to take sides in the election, he said.
Asked which candidate he would prefer to win the election, Chu said he is neutral.
“No matter who wins the election, it is imperative that Taiwan and the US maintain close relations, which is extremely important to the nation’s security, and its trade and commerce,” he said.
US academics have said that Washington would continue to adhere to the position, and urged Taiwan not to base its security on any particular US administration or president, he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS