China's remarks on direct charter flights received mixed reviews from lawmakers yesterday.
KMT Legislator John Chang (章孝嚴) painted the Chinese response as positive and urged the government to seize the opportunity to lift the ban on direct air links.
But DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (
Chang, who has floated the idea of direct charter flights to facilitate the return of Taiwanese business people in China for the Lunar New Year holiday, said he would go to China with domestic air companies next month to negotiate the matter.
He said point-to-point cross-strait charter flight services would be the best way to help Taiwanese businesspeople return to Taiwan before the opening of direct links.
Chang, a member of the KMT Central Standing Committee, made the remarks when he gave a report on his proposal at a regular meeting of the KMT Central Standing Committee.
Chang said he is glad that the Cabinet has directed the Mainland Affairs Council to complete its assessment in two weeks, allowing potential passengers ample time to make preparations.
"So long as all technical questions are settled by early December, China-based Taiwanese businesspeople may fly home nonstop for the Lunar New Year next February," he said.
Chang has initiated a petition calling for point-to-point, one-way charter flights.
He said 130 colleagues from across the political spectrum have signed the petition.
Though receptive to Chang's idea, the DPP doubts China would set aside political disputes in an attempt to promote direct transport links.
Wang noted there is no bona-fide civilian agency in China, which means the talks on direct charters would inevitably involve government officials.
Also, he said the principle of reciprocity suggested by Beijing has made Chang's one-way charters infeasible.
In related news, DPP Legislator Chang Ching-fang (張清芳) urged the government to make it easier for Chinese businessmen to stay in Taiwan in order to increase their willingness to invest in the local real-estate market.
He remarked that only one application has been filed since the government opened the market to Chinese people in August.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires