China is likely to use a version of its “one country, two systems” framework designed for Taiwan to legitimize use of force against the country, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said.
Chiu was speaking at a meeting on Thursday, at which the council’s advisory committee discussed possible responses in the event that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to legitimize an invasion of Taiwan and mitigate any international response by invoking the framework.
The CCP first announced the Taiwan version of the framework in 2019, when it hoped to use the proposal as a basis for political negotiations with Taiwan, he said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Liberty Times
In a report issued after the meeting, a researcher who asked to remain anonymous was cited as saying that the CCP has had to restructure its plans for the implementation of the Taiwan framework due to deteriorating US-China relations, the protests in Hong Kong and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to failures of the original “one country, two systems” framework designed for Hong Kong, China would redesign it for Taiwan, putting more emphasis on “one country,” while ensuring effective central control over the “two systems” to avoid social division, the researcher said.
The CCP would “localize” Taiwan in its laws, referring to it as a region of China, and would “internalize” cross-strait relations, they said, adding that the government should devise response measures.
Some committee members cited in the report said they believed that China had switched gears regarding Taiwan, because of the sanctions placed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
Fearing similar sanctions, China would attempt to legitimize its actions toward Taiwan using its laws, they said.
Recently, China’s “united front” efforts have focused on blocking any representation of Taiwan as an independent country internationally, as well as manipulating Taiwanese into working as collaborators, they said.
The CCP is likely to reiterate Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “five points” on Taiwan at the 20th National Congress to be held later this year, which includes the Taiwan framework, they said.
Xi first introduced the five points in January 2019 when he said China would promote “peaceful unification” with Taiwan that “would fully respect Taiwanese compatriots’ way of life and guarantee their properties, religious beliefs and legitimate rights.”
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
Opening-day ticket sales for a horror exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum were suspended twice on Saturday as the show attracted too many visitors. Titled “Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian art,” the exhibition runs until Oct. 16. It is the local version of a show that debuted at the Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It was planned and curated by Julien Rousseau. The Tainan museum said that within an hour of its doors opening, more than 1,000 people had entered the exhibition. By noon, 3,000 physical and virtual tickets had been sold, while the museum had more than 4,000
RSS