A national security official yesterday said that whether Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) potential meeting with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) represents goodwill from China or merely a “united front” strategy could be assessed using three key indicators.
Cheng on Monday said she has accepted an invitation from Xi to visit China from tomorrow to Sunday.
The first indicator is whether China would halt its military threats against Taiwan, said the official, who declined to be named.
Photo: Reuters and Taipei Times
Beijing’s military and “gray zone” activities stretch across the entire first island chain, from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea, heightening regional tensions.
If the Xi-Cheng meeting leads China to stop its routine threats, it would signal that it was a gesture of genuine goodwill toward Taiwan, the official said.
Otherwise, the meeting would appear to be little more than another “united front” tactic, they added.
The second indicator is whether Beijing would ease its pressure on Taiwan’s international space, the official said.
The nation’s meaningful participation in global bodies — such as the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol — directly affects public health, aviation safety and everyday well-being, they said.
If China truly cared about the welfare of Taiwanese, there would be no reason to continue blocking Taiwan from the international stage, they added.
The third indicator is “the release of religious figures arrested for actual missionary work,” they said.
Most Taiwanese are unaware that what Beijing calls “religious exchange” does not include missionary activities in China, the official said.
As a result, members of certain Christian groups and other religious organizations who have traveled to China to preach their faith have been detained by Chinese authorities, saying it is illegal, they said.
Only when China truly wants to have genuine religious exchanges with Taiwan — rather than using it as a tool for “united front” work — and shows real respect for religious freedom might Taiwanese place greater trust in Beijing, they added.
Other key measures to look out for include whether Beijing is willing to lift its “reciprocal” bans on Chinese tour groups, individual travelers and students traveling to Taiwan, and whether it stops blaming the ban on Taiwan’s decision to restrict travel to China, the official said
If, after the Xi-Cheng meeting, China fails to halt its military threats against Taiwan, continues to suppress the nation’s international space and shows no change in its “united front” efforts disguised as “exchanges,” it would be clear that the meeting was ultimately “a false play,” the core purpose of which was to mislead the international community, weaken US and global support for Taiwan, and create further division and unrest within the nation, they said.
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
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS