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27-05-2024
TAIPEI: Taiwan President Lai Ching-te again offered talks with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, saying he looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation.
China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills on Thursday and Friday, saying it was “punishment” after Lai’s inauguration speech on Monday which Beijing called another push for the island’s formal independence.
China has repeatedly lambasted Lai, saying he is a “separatist”. Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.
Speaking at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the southern city of Tainan, Lai called on China to “share the heavy responsibility of regional stability with Taiwan”, according to comments provided by his party.
Lai, who won election in January, said he also “looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation with China via exchanges and cooperation, creating mutual benefit and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity”.
He thanked the United States and other countries for their expressions of concern about the Chinese exercises.
“The international community will not accept any country creating waves in the Taiwan Strait and affecting regional stability,” Lai added.
Taiwan’s government has condemned China’s war games.
Over the past four years, China has staged regular military activities around Taiwan as it seeks to pressure the island’s government.
Meanwhile, in Taiwan’s Kinmen, less than an hour’s boat ride from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, bar owner Powei Lee draws crowds by blending the tiny island’s battle-scared past into cocktails.
During the height of the Cold War, Chinese and Taiwanese forces regularly clashed over Kinmen then mostly known in English as Quemoy and other islets controlled by Taipei along China’s coast.
While today Kinmen is a fashionable tourist destination, drawing visitors to see its endangered otters and stark natural beauty, it has been back in the news after China last week included areas round the island for its latest war games near Taiwan.
Kinmen native Lee’s cocktails at his Vent Bar showcase Kinmen’s unique flavor, such as the local fire water, Kaoliang, made with sorghum grown on the island.
Lee, 31, has designed one cocktail inspired by an extensive propaganda campaign which followed fighting in 1958, when Taiwanese forces fended off a Chinese attack on Kinmen, whose closest point is only around 2 km (1.2 miles) from China.
Called “Pick and Eat”, the cocktail is made with a base of soy milk, ginger and whisky, topped with cookies.
“Back then, the two sides would drop propaganda leaflets, each trying to show that their side was doing better and urging the other to surrender,” he told media.
“One of the things they would do besides the leaflets was to send over supplies like snacks and food, to show that the people were well-fed.”
Taiwan has controlled Kinmen, and the Matsu islands further up the coast, since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. No peace treaty has ever been signed.
Old bunkers, many now open to visitors, still dot Kinmen which is home to some 100,000 people, and Taiwan’s military maintains a substantial presence.
“I want them (the visitors) to be able to take away something even more meaningful than just typical souvenirs. If they can really feel that connection to the land, Lee said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
