Since President Chen Shui-bian's (
Tsai Ing-wen (
In the past two weeks, tycoons -- most notably Formosa Plastics Chairman Wang Yung-ching (
On May 21, Chen Yunlin (
The following day, as Tsai was reporting on the MAC's current cross-strait policy to the Legislative Yuan's Home and Nations Committee, KMT lawmaker and former foreign minister John Chang (
Also in the legislature that day, DPP Legislator Chang Chin-fang (
He later told the Taipei Times that the reason for such optimism was that people believe that China "favors private bodies" for holding negotiations.
That may be the government's reasoning too. A senior MAC official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Taipei Times, that "the government is eager to make a breakthrough in cross-strait relations." He said that, since China had made it perfectly clear that it would not talk to the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF,
Chang stressed that, while this situation may appear embarrassing for the SEF -- which is, after all, the sole private body authorized to represent Taiwan in negotiations with China -- "the lion's share of responsibility for its failure [to make progress over the past few years] rests with China."
China and Taiwan have not engaged in dialogue since the last Koo-Wang talks (
Re-emphasizing his own pessimism that captains of industry might succeed where the SEF has failed, Chang said, "It is an unrealistic expectation."
During the Koo-Wang talks of 1993 and 1998, the SEF and ARATS reached agreements on mutual recognition of notarized documents, procedures for the return of illegal immigrants, and postal inspection. Each agreement stipulates the basic rights of the people of the two sides.
"The Chinese authorities, however, do not always abide by their agreements," Chang noted.
According to SEF Secretary-General Shi Hwei-yow (
"If the Chinese authorities can unilaterally refuse to abide by agreements that they have signed with the SEF, they may very well do so with any other private body," said SEF Deputy Secretary-General Jan Jyh-horng (
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not