Government-authorized aviation representatives yesterday met with Chinese officials in Macau to discuss the politically charged cross-strait charter flights for the coming Lunar New Year, according to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper.
The Taipei Airlines Association, the government's authorized representative in the matter, yesterday made a low-profile exit, taking extensive measures to keep their trip to Macau from the media. According to the China Times Express, Association chairman Lo Ta-hsin (樂大信) and Secretary General Solo Su (蘇賢榮) had departed on Thursday evening from Taipei's Sungshan domestic airport, taking the additional precaution of flying first to Kaohsiung before taking off for Macau.
The association representatives met yesterday with Pu Zhaozhou (浦照洲), an official of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in charge of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau affairs (浦照洲), according to the report.
Both Lo and Su left after having assured the media they were still in Taipei and that they were uncertain as to when they would negotiate charter flights with China. As of press time yesterday, neither could be reached for comment.
The Central News Agency, however, last night reported that according to an unnamed Chinese Civil Aviation Administration official, Pu had not departed for Macau, and that he was working in Beijing. He said Pu was prepared only to meet with a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation from Taiwan and some business representatives on Monday.
The top Chinese official in charge of Taiwan affairs is also slated to meet the KMT delegation on Monday to exchange views on the launch of direct cross-strait charter flights, the report added.
Meanwhile, the government has made the words "no comment" its latest mantra, refraining from discussing cross-strait flights in detail. Asked whether he had any information on the progress of negotiations in Macau, Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (
"I haven't been able to reach them. Their cellular phones are turned off," Chiu said, denying knowledge of when Lo and Su would return as well.
Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) took a similar stance, telling reporters that "the details cannot be made public, but we're working toward a positive result."
He did say that Taiwan would be willing to allow flights that made "virtual stopovers" in Hong Kong, or another third destination. While the government had been calling for direct, reciprocal flights, Wu raised the possibility of flights entering the airspace of a third nation without making a transit stop before proceeding to Taiwan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires