■ Cross-strait
Taiwanese elected in China
A Taiwanese businessman has been chosen to sit on a district people's congress in Ningbo city, becoming the first person from Taiwan to serve as a lawmaker in China, an official said yesterday. Zeng Yushu was elected Friday to the legislature of Jinzhou district, said a local Communist Party official by telephone. "He is the first Taiwanese businessman in China elected as a representative of the people's congress," said the official. Zeng's company employs more than 500 workers and had sales this year of US$30 million, the official China News Service said. The report said Zeng was nominated by 10 people, including one of his workers, and later won more than half the total votes cast. Candidates for legislatures, including lower level bodies, are usually selected by the Communist Party.
■ Society
Ghost wedding links couple
A man who died of complications after having a tooth pulled and his girlfriend who committed suicide from grief were married in a traditional "ghost wedding," it was reported yesterday. Some 30 family members attended the wedding ceremony of Chen Yen-jen, 26, and Chiang Chia-ling, 21, held at the city mortuary in Keelung on Sunday, a Chinese-language newspaper said. Chen's brother and Chiang's sister tied the knot on behalf of the dead, holding photographs of the deceased. Chen died of meningitis on Oct. 25 after he had a tooth removed a month earlier, the paper said. His girlfriend killed herself Nov. 3, the day of his funeral by burning charcol in her college dorm room. She left a note asking to be married to Chen after her death and for them both to be buried together.
■ Government
Chen emphasizes security
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) told a US delegation that the Taiwan government has to consider national security a higher priority than economic interests when considering direct links between the two sides of the Strait. "The direct links issue can cut both ways, but what the majority of the people in Taiwan are concerned about is whether national security can be safeguarded once the links are sanctioned, and therefore, we must proceed with caution," Chen told guests.
■ Education
Policy set to limit new words
To address the mounting concerns over the nation's nine-year compulsory educational program Minister of Education Huang Jung-tsun (黃榮村) promised to implement new policies within a month in a legislative interpellation last week. One of the key changes will be to restrict to 1,000 the number of the English words and phrases taught at primary schools. The policy is aimed at lightening students' work load and safeguarding the education rights of disadvantaged students who cannot afford to attend cram schools.
■ Crime
Lin on Most Wanted list
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday put Justin Lin (林毅夫), who defected to China in 1979, on its Most Wanted list. The Control Yuan also confirmed yesterday that Lin had taken confidential military information with him during his escape. Lin's family also said yesterday that it will not return the NT$475,000 in compensation it received from the military in 1979 after Lin was listed as missing. Lin is now a well-known scholar at Beijing University and an adviser to Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基). Despite being granted permission to return to Taiwan to attend his father's funeral in June, he decided not to do so.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods