The “most important considerations” in Taiwan’s cooperation with the US should be national interests and the rights of people, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
“Regarding the US presidential election that just ended, the position of the KMT is very straightforward,” Chiang said at a weekly KMT Central Standing Committee meeting in Taipei.
“That is, support the further deepening of cooperation between Taiwan and the US, and firmly adhere to a ‘pro-US and friendly to mainland [China]’ path,” he said.
Photo: CNA
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration should be condemned for having “falsely accused [the KMT] of ‘betting on China and being anti-US,’” as it seeks to quell claims that it “bet on the Republican Party” in the US presidential election, Chiang said.
“We know that if the DPP does not paint [the KMT] red, its political mobilization will weaken,” he said.
“No matter how the DPP deliberately and maliciously attacks the KMT, it will still insist on safeguarding the sovereignty of the Republic of China and ensuring peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as its mission,” he said.
Chiang added that the KMT is against what he described as the Tsai administration and Beijing’s tactic of “deliberately heightening conflict to continue stirring up hatred between people and destroy the most important factor in cross-strait relations, which is mutual understanding and respect between people.”
Using the KMT’s opposition to the import of US pork containing ractopamine to claim that the KMT is “anti-US” has left the DPP looking like it “cannot find legitimate evidence to accuse [the KMT] of being ‘anti-US,’” Chiang said.
“If opposing ractopamine pork is being ‘anti-US,’ then more than 160 countries in the world, including 20-or-so EU nations, are all ‘anti-US,’” he said.
The KMT “has always advocated deepening cooperation with the US, but cooperation does not mean fully accepting the other side’s requests,” he added.
Instead, national interests and the rights of people should be treated as the “most important considerations,” he said, adding: “We are pro-US, but love Taiwan more.”
Even under pressure from Washington, the former KMT administration only agreed to import US beef from cattle younger than 30 months, dealt with beef and pork imports separately, and excluded internal organs from the policy, Chiang said.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “raid-like” announcement on Aug. 28 that Taiwan would ease restrictions on imports of certain US pork and beef products would have a significant effect, as Taiwanese consume seven times more pork than beef, he said.
Chiang said the KMT is to take to the streets on Sunday next week to protest what he described as Tsai’s “irresponsible decision.”
Protestors are scheduled to gather on Ketagalan Boulevard at 1pm before marching toward the DPP’s headquarters, a post on the KMT’s Facebook page said.
A survey released by the KMT on Monday showed that 57.5 percent of respondents agreed that the government should postpone allowing the import of US pork containing ractopamine, due to possible adjustments to US foreign policy following US President Donald Trump’s defeat in the election on Tuesday last week.
The survey showed that 19.5 percent of people disagreed, while 23 percent said they did not know.
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