Chairman Jaushieh Joseph Wu of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday (29th) received Mr. Ruediger Moniac, Chief Editor of the German monthly Loyal and stated that China has not only kept on boycotting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, but has also been strongly oppressing our participation in non-political activities in the international community, which have only driven the hearts of the Taiwanese people farther away. At the Hairdressing and Fashion Makeup Competition in Milan, Italy in early November this year, Chinese delegates unreasonably demanded the hosts to change the country name of Taiwan’s representatives. Chairman Wu cited this incident as he urged China to stop its diplomatic boycott against Taiwan and withdraw the deployed missiles targeted at Taiwan, in order to benefit the development of peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations.
In answering the questions posed by Mr. Moniac about whether both sides of the Strait are engaged in military personnel exchanges, Chairman Wu stated that Taiwan has proposed several times that both sides establish confidence building measures to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the Asia-Pacific region so as to avoid military conflict. However, Taiwan has not received any positive response from China until now. On the contrary, China has continued to modernize its defense weapons, and has invested a huge amount of its defense budget in the purchase of advanced weapons, as well as deployed ballistic missiles along its southeastern coastal areas, which have become a major threat to Taiwan.
Mr. Moniac also expressed his concern over the discussion within the European Community about the lifting of the arms embargo on China. Chairman Wu pointed out that at present, China does not have a good human rights record, and has continually declared that it will not abandon the use of force against Taiwan, and has even continued to export its arms to other countries. The European Union should be well aware of these situations and must also carefully handle the aforementioned arms ban to avoid giving China the wrong impression that Europe supports its military threat against Taiwan. Moreover, Chairman Wu also expressed gratitude to the German Parliament’s resolution opposing the lifting of the arms embargo on China.
Mr. Ruediger Moniac, Chief Editor of the German monthly Loyal, is a senior military correspondent and is visiting Taiwan upon the invitation of the Government Information Office under the Executive Yuan to gain an understanding of the political situation in Taiwan.