Waking local governments
China refuses to allow representatives of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led Taichung and Taoyuan to participate in the Cross-Strait Academic Conference on Urban Traffic in Shanghai to be held tomorrow.
This is only going to further alienate Taiwanese and play into the hands of DPP-led governments, all because of the Chinese communists’ “one China” preoccupation. In the end, who else do they have to blame but themselves?
Any civilized person should be concerned how China always places politics above academics. Professors and students from both sides of the Strait are only interested in studying issues related to transport. Why bring Taiwan’s pan-blue and pan-green politics into it?
Through its unilateral actions, China has intervened in the event’s preparations. That is bad enough, but it has done so completely out of the blue, totally disregarding that Taichung Transportation Bureau Director-General Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) had already received his invitation, was on the list and was in the process of preparing to host one of the sessions.
The conference is a city-level exchange, somewhere between a national central government level exchange and a local, grassroots social exchange, to effect practical change in urban transport.
However, the Chinese communists have seen fit to commandeer this academic event for their own “united front” work, differentiating between cities based upon the politics of their leaders and using a scorched earth strategy against green local governments.
Ever since the nine-in-one elections in 2014, Beijing has viewed the redrawn political map of Taiwan as something of a battleground and even though the conference is an academic event, China has decided its united front is to be waged upon it.
We should not be taking this lying down. Wang has already responded by saying that all preparation work for holding next year’s conference is now to be terminated. Local governments are beginning to awaken.
Chiu Yen-yu
Kaohsiung
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
RSS