Many Taiwanese have shrugged off China’s warnings of repercussions from a possible trip to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying they are accustomed to Beijing’s saber rattling and saw no cause for alarm.
Such a trip would be the first by a US House speaker since 1997.
While news of a possible visit has been widely reported in Taiwan, front-page stories in the past week have focused on political campaigns ahead of local elections this year, as well as record-breaking temperatures.
Photo: AFP
Waiting for a doctor’s appointment on a busy street in Taipei, Chen Yen-chen gave voice to a widely held view about China’s remarks.
“That is mostly verbal threats and intimidation, so this time around I am quite at ease,” said the 30-year-old, who works in education.
Visits by US officials to Taiwan have become a frequent source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
Despite fears that a visit could trigger a fourth crisis over the Taiwan Strait since 1949, politicians and diplomats in Taiwan have said that people are used to military intimidation by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
“To the Taiwanese people, Chinese threats have never stopped in the past decades. It’s happening every day,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said. “Taiwan needs to be on guard, but Taiwan will not cave in to fear.”
A visit by Pelosi would be welcomed, said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Department of International Affairs director Alexander Huang (黃介正), who is also the party’s representative in the US.
“Of course it raises Taiwan’s visibility and it shows the American commitment to Taiwan in a pretty formal way,” Huang said, describing the impact such a visit would have.
Beijing’s threats of unspecified “serious consequences” are merely the same old warnings for 26-year-old office assistant Hung Chien, who said: “I am already used to China issuing such statements, so I am not overly nervous.”
Military threats have only made Taiwan more determined to stand up to Beijing, some analysts said.
For example, during the Third Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995 and 1996, the PLA fired missiles into the waters near Taiwan ahead of its first direct presidential vote.
That move was widely interpreted as a warning against supporting a candidate Beijing saw as pushing for Taiwan’s formal independence.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) won by a landslide.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS