Cross-party negotiations to draft a statement on UN Resolution 2758 broke down after heated disagreements about whether to align with other parliamentary statements on the matter or to return to the UN as the Republic of China (ROC).
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus held discussions between the three major political parties on the statement, during which all parties put forward their respective proposals.
In July, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China passed a motion clarifying that the resolution does not limit Taiwan’s participation in the UN, and that China has distorted its meaning to align with its own “one China” principle.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The Dutch House of Representatives, the Australian Senate and the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs have also passed similar statements.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suggested that the statement should emphasize how the resolution does not mention Taiwan, and that China has distorted it to block the nation from participating in international affairs.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) preferred to break with the resolution, and for Taiwan to rejoin the UN under the name the ROC.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
As no consensus was reached, it would be up to Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) to hold future negotiations.
TPP Legislator Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿), who chaired the meeting, said the TPP hoped that the Legislative Yuan could come to an agreement.
Chen added that the TPP’s proposed statement referred to the country as “ROC Taiwan.”
DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) said that the DPP and TPP proposals were similar, with the key difference being that the DPP sought to condemn China to align with statements from legislatures in other countries.
KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), who arrived late, referred to President William Lai’s (賴清德) remarks over the weekend that China cannot be Taiwan’s “motherland” and said that both parties were united in their feelings, and that the DPP has no reason to oppose the KMT’s proposal to rejoin international organizations as the ROC.
DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) agreed with Shen that the TPP and DPP proposals were close in terms of historical accuracy and reflected mainstream public opinion, although the former is more domestic-focused and the latter focused internationally.
However, the KMT proposal seeks to negate UN Resolution 2758 entirely and is at odds with the international community, she added.
After further remarks from Lo, the DPP legislators left the meeting.
Wu accused Lo and the KMT of seeking to sow chaos within the Legislative Yuan, adding that such statements could send the wrong signal to the international community.
She said the KMT refused to engage in good-faith negotiations, adding that the DPP would await future talks led by Han.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS