Thousands rally for Taiwan independence vote

TAIPEI- Thousands of Taiwan independence campaigners took to the streets Saturday for a major rally that is a rebuke to Beijing and a challenge to the island's already embattled government.

The protest in central Taipei came as China increasingly pushes its claim to the self-ruling democratic island and President Tsai Ing-wen struggles to appease Beijing and independence factions.

It was the first large-scale protest calling for an outright independence vote since Taiwan first became a democracy more than 20 years ago.

Organizers claimed a turnout of 80,000. A police estimate was not immediately available.

Demonstrators gathered outside the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters chanting slogans and waving flags reading "Independence Referendum."

"Want Referendum!" and "Oppose Annexation!" the crowd shouted.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949.

Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state, with its own currency, political and judicial systems, but has never declared formal independence from the mainland.

Beijing has warned it would respond with force if Taiwan tried an official split.

Organized by new group Formosa Alliance, which is backed by two pro-independence former Taiwan presidents, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, the rally called for a public vote on whether the island should formally declare independence from China.

"Only through holding a referendum can Taiwanese people show to the international community our right to build an independent new country," said Tsai Wen-li, 63, a retired postal worker who wore a T-shirt reading "Taiwan is my country".

Engineer Rex Yang, 35, described Taiwan as an "orphan in the international community".

"Taiwanese people want Taiwan to become a normal country...that is why I stand out here today", he told AFP.

BEIJING PRESSURE

Even though the DPP is traditionally independence-leaning, President Tsai has said she wants to maintain the status quo with China.

But that has not prevented relations deteriorating since she took office in 2016, as she refuses to adhere to Beijing's line that Taiwan is part of "one China".

Beijing has made a multi-pronged attack to erase Taiwan from the international stage, including blocking it from global forums and poaching its dwindling number of official diplomatic allies.

China has also successfully pressured global firms to list Taiwan as part of China on their company websites.

At the same time, Tsai's measured approach has alienated some pro-independence DPP supporters.

A vote on independence would require an amendment to current laws, which bar referendums on changing the constitution or sovereign territory. 

Formosa Alliance is urging the DPP government, which has a majority in parliament, to change the laws to allow such a vote.

Analysts agree Tsai would be unlikely to allow such an amendment which would be a red flag to Beijing.

Chinese authorities have already said Formosa Alliance should not go down what they called a "dangerous path".

The DPP publicly prohibited its officials and candidates from attending Saturday's rally, instead holding its own rally against China's "annexation" of Taiwan in the southern city of Kaohsiung. 

The move was seen as a way for the party to distance itself from activists but to reflect the feelings of some of its more pro-independence members and supporters.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump says US not necessarily bound by 'one China' policy

WASHINGTON - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of "one China," questioning nearly four decades of policy in a move likely to antagonize Beijing.

Trump's comments on Fox News Sunday came after he prompted a diplomatic protest from China over his decision to accept a telephone call on Dec. 2 from Taiwan's president.

"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Trump told Fox News.

Trump's call with President Tsai Ing-wen was the first such contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China."

Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province and the subject is a sensitive one for China.

Chinese officials had no immediate reaction to Trump's remarks.

After Trump's phone conversation with Taiwan's president, the Obama administration said senior White House aides had spoken with Chinese officials to insist that Washington’s “one China” policy remained intact. The administration also warned that progress made in the U.S. relationship with China could be undermined by a "flaring up" of the Taiwan issue.

Following Trump's latest comments, a White House aide said the Obama administration had no reaction beyond its previously stated policy positions.

In the Fox interview, Trump criticized China over its currency policies, its activities in the South China Sea and its stance toward North Korea. He said it was not up to Beijing to decide whether he should take a call from Taiwan's leader.

"I don't want China dictating to me and this was a call put in to me," Trump said. "It was a very nice call. Short. And why should some other nation be able to say I can't take a call?"

"I think it actually would've been very disrespectful, to be honest with you, not taking it," Trump added.

Trump plans to nominate a long-standing friend of Beijing, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, as the next U.S. ambassador to China.

However, Trump is considering John Bolton, a former Bush administration official who has urged a tougher line on Beijing, for a senior role at the U.S. State Department, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The source said Bolton was a leading candidate for the No. 2 job at the State Department.

In a Wall Street Journal article last January, Bolton said the next U.S. president should take bolder steps to halt China' military aggressiveness in the South and East China seas.

Bolton said Washington should consider using a "diplomatic ladder of escalation" that could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department and lead to restoring full diplomatic recognition.

In the Fox interview, Trump brought up a litany of complaints about China which he had emphasized during his presidential campaign.

"We're being hurt very badly by China with devaluation, with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don't tax them, with building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn't be doing, and frankly with not helping us at all with North Korea," Trump said. "You have North Korea. You have nuclear weapons and China could solve that problem and they're not helping us at all."

Economists, including those at the International Monetary Fund, have widely viewed China's efforts to prop up the yuan's value over the past year as evidence that Beijing is no longer keeping its currency artificially low to make Chinese exports cheap.

Some U.S. analysts warned that Trump could provoke a military confrontation if he presses the Taiwan issue too far.

"China is more likely to let the whole relationship with the United States deteriorate in order to show its resolve on the Taiwan issue," said Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert in Chinese nationalism.

"When the decision to end a decades-long practice is made with so little warning and clear communication, it raises the likelihood of misunderstanding and miscalculation and sets the stage for a crisis between the United States and China over Taiwan," Chen Weiss said.

Mike Green, a former top adviser on Asia to former President George W. Bush, said ending the "one China" policy would be a mistake because it would throw the U.S.-China relationship into turmoil and jeopardize Beijing's cooperation on issues such as North Korea.

But Green, who is now with the CSIS think tank, said he does not believe that Trump intends to go that far and there was "logic to serving Beijing notice that he will not be dictated to on issues like Taiwan."

On Sunday, China's top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi was traveling to U.S. neighbor Mexico, according to the official news agency Xinhua, but Mexican officials could not offer details.

Mexico has been deepening ties with China, which is partly funding a multi-billion dollar wholesale mobile network while China Offshore Oil Corporation took two of the eight blocks of deep water oil fields offered in a historic auction this month.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jeff Mason and Veronica Gomez in Mexico City; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Alan Crosby)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

White House reaffirms 'One China' policy after Trump calls Taiwan leader

WASHINGTON, United States - The White House reaffirmed Friday its backing for the policy that recognizes Beijing as the sole government of "One China" after President-elect Donald Trump risked Chinese ire by calling the leader of Taiwan, in a break with US norms.

"There is no change to our longstanding policy on cross-Strait issues," National Security spokeswoman Emily Horne told AFP.

"We remain firmly committed to our 'one China' policy based on the three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act. Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations."

source: news.abs-cbn.com