Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

US cable reignites Ma green card furor

Taipei Times

The controversy over President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) US green card status flared up again after recent cables released by WikiLeaks ignited a fresh round of accusations between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday.

The cables, dated between February and June 2008, recently released by WikiLeaks showed that KMT heavyweights had visited the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and asked the US to clearly explain Ma’s green card status before the 2008 presidential election.

After Ma defeated DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who had accused Ma of still holding a green card, in the 2008 presidential election, KMT politicians expressed their appreciation for the US’ impartiality toward the “dirty tricks” that the DPP had staged.

UN told to drop ‘Taiwan is part of China’: cable

Taipei Times

A number of Western governments, with the US in the lead, protested to the UN in 2007 to force the global body and its secretary-general to stop using the reference “Taiwan is a part of China,” a cable recently released by WikiLeaks shows.

The confidential cable, sent by the US’ UN mission in New York in August 2007, said that after returning from a trip abroad, UN -Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had met then-US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss a range of issues, including “UN language on the status of Taiwan.”

“Ban said he realized he had gone too far in his recent public statements, and confirmed that the UN would no longer use the phrase ‘Taiwan is a part of China,’” said the cable, which was sent to the US Department of State and various US embassies worldwide.

‘Three noes’ destroying the so-called ‘status quo’

Paul Lin 林保華

As Typhoon Nanmadol threatened Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had other things on his mind, such as what to do about Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). He thought invoking the so-called “1992 consensus” could silence Tsai and the Taiwanese who oppose unification. Apart from banging on about how much he was engaged with the preparations for Nanmadol’s landfall — ignoring the more considerable contributions of others — he called on Tsai to comment on his “three noes” policy: “no unification, no independence and no use of force.”

Tsai need not bother answer his questions, because I can answer them for her. Ma’s “three noes” threaten the “status quo.” Not only do they fail to maintain it, they conspire to obliterate it and perhaps are already doing so.

New rules needed on Taiwan: Berman

Taipei Times

US Representative Howard Berman, the most senior Democrat on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to lift restrictions on Taiwanese political leaders visiting the US.

In a speech to the Formosa Foundation in Los Angeles on Saturday, Berman blamed pressure from China for keeping the restrictions in place.

“It’s a crazy thing. Why does some foreign government get to tell the American government and the American people whether or not and under what circumstances a leader from Taiwan can come to this country?” he said.

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