Pan-blue legislators have stayed away from China's National Day celebrations, obeying their leaders' calls to protect the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) from accusations ahead of the presidential election that they are conniving with China.
"According to information we have from the national security network, there were no legislators from the pan-blue camp -- at least in an open, public fashion -- attending China's National Day this year," said Wu Jui-wen (吳瑞文), office manager of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiang Chao-yi (江昭儀).
Chiang, along with DPP legislators such as Trong Chai (蔡同榮) and Lin Chin-hsing (林進興), are members of the Alliance Against Selling Out Taiwan (反賣台聯盟). The alliance was formed to monitor interactions between the pan-blue camp and China.
In a press statement released by the alliance two weeks ago, it said that China had invited pan-blue-camp members to yesterday's National Day celebrations.
The statement said that the invitations were sent to people Beijing believed "had made contributions to the interests of China."
Wu said that, in the past, there were pan-blue legislators, such as former New Party legislator Elmer Feng (馮滬祥), who openly publicized their attendance at the celebrations. But a KMT ban on its members visiting China, Hong Kong and Macao between now and next March's presidential election had been heeded.
The KMT issued the ban shortly after the alliance issued its statement on the invitations.
KMT legislative caucus leader Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) said that the notice was issued to reduce the chance of critics "defaming" the party and accusing it of collaborating with China to sell out Taiwan.
"While there was no public attendance from the pan-blue legislators this Oct. 1 in China, the alliance will continue to keep an eye on any interaction between the pan-blue camp and Beijing and will publicize our findings when there are any," Wu said.
"We think it is extremely inappropriate for any legislators from Taiwan to attend China's National Day celebration," said Wu. "However, we are not surprised that there are members from civil groups in Taiwan attending."
Wang Jung-hsiung (
"[The invitations] were for the group's high-ranking officers such as the chairman, vice chairman and general-secretary," Wang said, adding that a delegation of four people was now in China.
Tan Shou (唐曙), secretary-general of the pro-unification Labor Party, however, said that the party had not received any invitations for the past two or three years.
Also See Story:
Editorial: The KMT's questionable allegiance
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