Kinmen County yesterday began importing water from China’s Fujian Province to stabilize its water supply, while county Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海) said he hopes to boost bilateral ties with the Chinese province through what he called “three new links.”
Separate ceremonies were held in Kinmen and China’s Jinjiang City to mark the opening of the water supply system, with Chen and other local politicians attending the ceremony in Kinmen.
The county government held the ceremony as scheduled, despite calls by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to delay it after Beijing pressured members of the East Asian Olympic Committee to revoke Taichung’s right to host the East Asian Youth Games next year.
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
The “water link” — one of Chen’s “three new links” — is the result of an agreement that Taiwan and China signed in 2015 to provide Kinmen with water for 30 years, Chen said.
It is followed by an “electricity link” and “bridge link” between Kinmen and China, he added.
Chen also referred to the “small three links” — postal, transportation and trade connections between Taiwan and China that started in 1991.
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
According to the water purchase agreement, Kinmen is to import up to an average of 34,000 tonnes of water a day at a cost of NT$9.86 per cubic meter, and the daily supply could reach 55,000 tonnes a day, the Kinmen County Waterworks said.
The ceremony in Jinjiang was attended by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一), along with China’s Fujian Province Governor Yu Weiguo (于偉國), and a Taiwanese delegation of more than 20 councilors led by Kinmen County Council Speaker Hung Li-ping (洪麗萍).
The water connection signals the development of peaceful cooperation between Kinmen and Jinjiang, which were previously divided by military conflicts, Liu said at the ceremony.
“Only if cross-strait relations are good will Taiwanese be better off,” Liu said.
Liu criticized Taiwanese who opposed the system out of “malicious political purposes,” saying they would “meet their doom” for neglecting the well-being of their compatriots.
The MAC in a statement congratulated Kinmen, while condemning Beijing for using the system for political gains.
The water system — a commercial agreement — was politicized by China as a “gift” to Taiwan in a bid to split Taiwanese, it said.
The government has displayed its utmost goodwill by allowing the system to be launched as scheduled, at a time when cross-strait relations are tense, the council said.
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said more deliberation is needed regarding the “three new links,” but added that the government would prioritize the needs of Kinmen residents.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
HELPING HAND: Taiwan is ready to help other nations and will not sit idly by while the global fight against the coronavirus continues, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan, as a responsible member of the international community, is to offer humanitarian assistance to nations hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic by sending them masks and medicine, as well as sharing with them an electronic system that the government has been using to track down people that need to be quarantined, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday. With the nation’s daily production having reached 13 million masks and soon to reach 15 million, the government is to donate 10 million masks to medical personnel in nations most severely affected by the coronavirus, Tsai said at the Presidential Office in Taipei. The
NINE NEW CASES: The CECC said two locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, and seven imported ones – five women and two men – brought the nation’s total to 348 People who refuse to wear a mask on public transportation after being asked to do so would face a NT$3,000 to NT$15,000 fine, effective immediately, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday after announcing nine additional COVID-19 cases. In a move to curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications on Tuesday announced that people must wear masks on trains and intercity buses, while Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, on Tuesday said that people should wear them when they cannot maintain a social distance of 1.5m indoors. Chen yesterday
TRILLION PROPOSED: The premier said the goal was to keep ‘businesses solvent, the unemployment rate down, transportation and logistics going, and cash flowing’ The Executive Yuan yesterday announced an expanded economic stimulus package totaling NT$1.05 trillion (US$34.64 billion), including NT$81.6 billion in subsidies for employers to prevent a spike in unemployment. The increased budget comprises a special budget of NT$210 billion, up from the NT$60 billion already passed by the Legislative Yuan; NT$140 billion — up from NT$40 billion — to be appropriated from the general budget; and NT$700 billion in loans to industries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei. The NT$150 billion increase in the
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday released a set of revised criteria for reporting suspected COVID-19 cases, while also announcing its guidelines for disclosing patients’ personal information. The center said that its advisory specialist panel revised the definition for “severe pneumonia with novel pathogens” — COVID-19 infection — by expanding the criteria needed to report suspected cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that physicians should report people for testing if they meet one of three clinical conditions: They have a fever, acute respiratory infection, or a lack of smell or taste; there is a
RSS