Taiwan is planning a series of offshore live-fire military drills throughout April around its offshore islets, including Quemoy, a Taiwanese-held outpost which is a short distance from the mainland city of Xiamen. On Wednesday, Chen Binhua, a spokesman for mainland China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Beijing is closely monitoring the movements of the Taiwanese army, … Read more
Beijing says it is holding a Taiwanese soldier who was rescued by mainland Chinese coastguards earlier this week and then tried to conceal his real identity. Chen Binhua, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that man, identified only by the surname Hu, was one of two people rescued by coastguards off the coast … Read more
“The [routes] will be launched as soon as they are ready,” Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday. Once launched, mainland planes could more easily stay over the line, a move analysts said would put more strain on the island’s air defences because of the need to distinguish between military … Read more
Taiwan’s people have been urged to “stand on the right side of history” by opposing independence in a new year’s message from the head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office delivered less than two weeks before its presidential election. Song Tao said Taiwanese people should get cross-strait relations back on the “correct path of peaceful development” … Read more
He also said it had started “attacking” the ECFA before it came to power in 2016 and taken “discriminatory trade-restrictive measures” against the mainland, which had led to Beijing’s suspension of tariff concessions on 12 products effective from January 1. Chen also said the Taiwan Affairs Office will support further trade measures if the DPP … Read more
Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the decision was based on “a comprehensive assessment of relevant corrective measures”, after Taiwanese industry representatives to the mainland had provided information about measures taken to address the problem and expressed the “strong hope” that imports could resume, according to state news agency Xinhua. … Read more
