The legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee yesterday passed a resolution to “strongly condemn” Beijing, a day after China coerced nations on the route of President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to Eswatini to close their airspace to the president.
Separately, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) issued contradictory responses, with the party criticizing Beijing and Cheng blaming the Lai administration for angering China.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers on the committee sponsored the resolution, which passed by a unanimous vote.
Photo: CNA
China’s use of diplomatic and economic coercion to revoke the flight permits from countries en route Lai’s state visit to Eswatini was an infringement on Taiwan’s diplomatic freedom, international norms and the “status quo,” the resolution said.
Beijing’s actions contravened international laws and conventions protecting a nation’s right to conduct diplomatic policy, manage internal affairs without interference and the freedom of civil aviation, it said.
The resolution cited the UN Charter, UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, the Chicago Convention and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Photo: CNA
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should protest China’s meddling via its missions to foreign nations and multilateral frameworks, including the International Civil Aviation Organization, to safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and diplomatic space, it said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said the three African nations neighboring landlocked Eswatini had approved Lai’s flight path weeks before the scheduled visit.
Beijing waited until 12 hours before Lai’s takeoff to threaten these nations, leveraging debts they owed to China, he said.
KMT Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) said that she fully supports the president’s right to visit the nation’s diplomatic allies.
However, Cheng, who had earlier this month returned from a closed-door meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), blamed Lai for what she called a “diplomatic defeat.”
“Sometimes we should look at ourselves before looking at others,” she said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had an excellent relationship with China, she said.
“I ask the DPP government: Doesn’t the Constitution support the ‘one China’ principle? Doesn’t every country in the world oppose Taiwanese independence and uphold the ‘1992 consensus?’” Cheng said.
“As an opposition party, the KMT is opposed to Taiwanese independence like all other foreign governments, and the party is brave enough to take the first steps toward peace when the threat of war rises in the Taiwan Strait,” Cheng said.
The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
In contrast with Cheng’s statements, the KMT said the cancellation of Lai’s trip was “deeply regrettable.” It also urged Beijing to exercise restraint and reduce its “suppression” of Taiwan’s diplomatic space.
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) said it “strongly protests and condemns” China’s actions, which “seriously trampled on our sovereignty and interfered in our internal affairs.”
DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) slammed Cheng in a news conference, saying that the KMT leader’s “haste in turning her guns on her own country is deeply regrettable.”
Cheng’s remarks about “one China” echoed the official statement China’s Taiwan Affairs Office had issued hours earlier, Wu said.
“Cheng had only China in her eyes, not Taiwan’s numerous democratic allies who voiced support for the nation in the wake of Beijing’s barbaric behavior,” he said. “Her comments deviated from the national interest and were wildly out of touch with mainstream public opinion.”
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-lin
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