People should vote against President Chen Shui-bian's (
Ruan, a visiting professor at Tamkang University and once a special assistant to former Chinese Communist Party Secretary-General Hu Yaobang (
"The framework proposal is unrealistic and dangerous," said Ruan, saying that the plan has conspicuously failed to deal with Beijing's "one China" principle and "one country, two systems" formula, which he said were two very tricky issues in cross-strait talks.
Answering a question from Kuo Chien-chung (郭建中), a professor at the Graduate Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University, about China's possible reaction to the referendum questions' results, Ruan said the people's approval of the plan would hardly help Taiwan.
China has insisted on Taiwan's acceptance of the "one China" principle as the condition for reopening cross-strait negotiations, "but the framework proposal does not discuss how to handle this condition," Ruan said.
Beijing will bring its sovereignty dispute with Taiwan to any cross-strait talks, Ruan said when criticizing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
The government here hopes to have exchanges with China based on "equality" -- but while Taipei may desire state-to-state exchanges, Beijing will downgrade them to internal affairs, Ruan said.
Cho, who addressed his rival as "the respectable and admirable Professor Ruan" several times during the debate, lauded Ruan's participation in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally.
Cho said that he has been a loyal reader of articles by Ruan, who became a citizen in 2002 and appeared with Chen and former President Lee Teng-hui (
However, Cho said people should vote "yes" on the second referendum question. If the cross-strait framework plan fails to gain the people's support, Taiwan will face multiple negative consequences, he said.
"Lack of support for the plan would expose how diversified Taiwan's internal opinions about ways to handle cross-strait affairs are," Cho said.
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
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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