China Airlines (CAL) denied yesterday that the cancellation of an unveiling ceremony for a plane painted with "Taiwan" in Roman script on its body was a result of pressure from China.
A Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday that Hong Kong would not allow the plane to land in its territory because of the word "Taiwan" on its body.
The report said the formerly state-run airline began painting the Boeing 747 on Aug. 23.
The airline recruited 40 workers to paint the airplane with 11 colors. The pigments used weighed 260kg. The project cost nearly NT$15 million, the report said.
The word "Taiwan," the geographic outline of the island and two rainbows are visible on one side of the airplane, while the other side of the aircraft was painted with the words "Touch Your Heart."
The report claimed the airline, which originally planned to unveil the aircraft yesterday, suddenly canceled the ceremony because the word on the aircraft annoyed China.
China threatened to block the airline's NT$1.5 billion investment in a Chinese cargo airline if the Taiwanese carrier insisted on unveiling the plane, the newspaper report quoted an unnamed airline insider as saying.
CAL spokesman Roger Han (
"There is no such matter. The two events are not related," Han said.
According to the report, the airline is preparing to erase all painting on the aircraft.
Han said he could not comment on the aircraft's artwork.
He noted the cancellation of the unveiling ceremony resulted from technical problems but did not give further details.
"I am not very clear about the technical problems," he said.
Han said that he was not sure exactly when the new aircraft would be introduced.
"We are still negotiating with the Tourism Bureau about the date. But I can't answer when the date will probably be set," he said.
The airline proposed painting the bureau's campaign slogan "Taiwan Touch Your Heart" on its aircraft in July in an effort to help rejuvenate the nation's tourism, which was severely damaged during the SARS epidemic.
Han stressed China did not influence CAL's plan to introduce the aircraft.
"The purpose of painting the aircraft is to boost Taiwan's tourism industry. Please don't concoct any political factors about the event," Han added.
Alexander Huang (
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Constitutional Affairs Bureau did not comment on the aircraft problem, but its spokesman said the Hong Kong Special Administration Region "does not recognize `passports' issued by Taiwan authorities."
The spokesman made the remarks in response to Taiwan's new passports, which contain the word "Taiwan" on the cover.
"The [Hong Kong] Government has consistently upheld the `one China' principle in handling Taiwan-related issues," the spokesman said.
The spokesman said Taiwan residents can continue to come to Hong Kong on the strength of entry permits issued by the Immigration Department of the Hong Kong government.
"There is no question of Taiwan residents entering Hong Kong with a `passport,'" the spokesman said.
Huang, however, said people with the new passports will not have problems entering Hong Kong.
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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