Taiwan achieved its best performance by winning six medals, including two gold, during the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games, which held its closing ceremony yesterday. However, one of the most famous heroes of Taiwan's delegation is not an athlete but the Deputy Secretary-General of the Presidential Office James Huang (
Huang, 46-years-old, was promoted from the post of Presidential Office spokesman to his current job after President Chen Shui-bian's (
These 16 years of training in diplomacy became one of Huang's most valuable assets, because he developed excellent skills in countering China's pressures in the international arena.
During the 2001's Shanghai APEC meeting, Chen originally assigned former vice president Li Yuan-zu (
Even when Taiwan's representative delegation had arrived in Shanghai, they still had to negotiate with the Chinese government and were unable to break through China's blockade.
Later the Presidential Office disclosed that among the delegation, the key person who was able to think clearly and tactically was James Huang, who at the time was still a deputy section chief
"Though our delegation on the front lines was bullied in the negotiation process, Huang's quick responses and coordination of staff was the reason that the delegation was able to stay together. It could be descirbed as Huang's first triumphant battle, and was the reason that Chen decided to promote this professional and skillful bureaucrat to become the spokesperson for the presidential office," Premier Yu Shyi-kun said.
At the time, Yu was the secretary-general of the Presidential Office.
During the past three years, Huang passed numerous tests to win the trust of not only the first family, but also Vice President Annette Lu (
During the Athens Paralympic Games, Huang served as the commander of the delegation, instead of a technical staff member. Huang made all of the decisions during the negotiations with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), and ultimately ensured Wu's dignity and the delegation's rights were protected.
"China's tactics this time were to try to lock up the first lady inside Taiwan, or failing that, inside the hotel in Athens, silencing her voice and making her invisible. But we were able to come out of that, our goal was achieved and we outsmarted China's tactic," Huang told the Taipei Times.
The first lady led Taiwan's delegation to Athens on Sept. 11, and returned to Taiwan on Sept. 20. During her 10-day trip, an IPC spokesman admitted during an interview with Agence France Presse that it suffered pressure from China.
The IPC asked Wu to stop all public activities and even tried to cancel Wu's National Paralympics Committee (NPC) card, which is a top-class VIP card given to the heads of National Paralympics delegations.
"However, the IPC made many tactical mistakes, and on the contrary, we completely defended our bottom line by being well prepared with all bargaining chips," Huang said.
"When we arrived in Athens, the IPC began threatening to take back the first lady's NPC card as well as canceling her qualifications as the Taiwanese delegation's head. I wrote letters to the IPC every day to strongly express our protests," Huang said. "I think that we won because we displayed our resolution and also made the effort of avoiding making damages to IPC's reputation."
The turning point for the deadlock between the IPC and the delegation on how to recognize Wu was a meeting on Sept. 26 between Huang and IPC officials.
"I told them that I will hold an international press conference and publicize all the documents the IPC gave us, to prove how the IPC inappropriately interfered with Taiwan's rights and was reckless in its treatment of a wheelchair-bound lady," Huang said
"I made a concession promising that I would not proceed with the official procedure of confirming Wu's NPC card, which meant that the IPC could tell China it canceled our card, but the conditions are that IPC could not question Wu's position as Taiwan delegation's head nor block or interfere with all of Wu's public appearances," Huang said.
The IPC accepted Huang's suggestion, which ultimately ensured that the first lady accomplished a successful mission and the IPC also had an excuse to interact with China.
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