INDEPENDENT NATION:The premier disputed Beijing’s ‘one China’ claim, citing Taiwanese sovereignty, with a president and officials that are elected by its people
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 28, 2017
By Lee Hsin-fang, Shih Hsiao-kuang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer
It is an indisputable fact that Taiwan is a nation and its name is the Republic of China
Premier William Lai reiterates that Taiwan is an independent nation during a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
(ROC), Premier William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, in response to Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan and China belongs to “one China.”
“Cross-strait relations are not state-to-state relations. There is no one China and one Taiwan. Taiwan is an indivisible part of Chinese territories. It has never been and will never be a country. China steadfastly opposes any form of Taiwanese independence,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said earlier yesterday.
“A nation is composed of its people, territory and sovereignty,” Lai told a news conference after presiding over an Executive Yuan meeting on attracting investments to Taiwan. “We elect our own president and officials; the people pay taxes to the government. By any metric, Taiwan is a sovereign and independent nation.”
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