A Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official said that the government will stick to its indirect flight model for security reasons despite the inconvenience that Taiwanese businessmen will face by stopping in Hong Kong or Macao.
MAC vice chairman Chen Ming-tong (
"Proposing the charter flight across the Strait is the most convenient way that the government can offer its assistance to businessmen investing in China," Chen said.
Chen's remark came after China said yesterday that the first charter flights between Taiwan and China could take place over the coming Lunar New Year holiday but ridiculed Taipei's insistence on routing the flights through Hong Kong.
Taiwan Affairs spokesman Zhang Mingqing (
"Taiwan says the chartered flights must pass through Hong Kong or Macau and land in Hong Kong or Macau. This will create burdens to both the airlines and the passengers and is of no real meaning," Zhang said.
"Even though we are not satisfied with doing it this way, we will actively cooperate with it," he said.
"If the Taiwan side is truly sincere and does not create new problems unexpectedly or do something to hurt the interests of the Taiwanese people, then I think I would be glad to see chartered flights achieved over Spring Festival," he said in reference to the Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 1, next year.
The latest push for time-saving, cost-cutting direct flights comes following the Communist Party congress, when President Jiang Zemin (
Days later, Taiwan gave its airlines the go-ahead to operate charter flights across the Taiwan Strait -- as long as they stopped in Hong Kong or Macau to keep them indirect.
Most passengers currently change planes in Hong Kong or Macau.
Taiwan officials said that if the Lunar New Year holiday flights proved a success, permission might be given for more flights during other holidays.
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