Prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng (
Wei was in Washington on Saturday to attend an anti-Chinese communist rally staged by about 30 Chinese groups in the US calling for Chinese around the world to end communism.
In light of Beijing's drafting of the anti-secession law, Wei said cross-strait relations are now even more jittery than during 1996, when China test-fired live missiles and held live-ammunition war games in the Taiwan Strait.
Wei said that some politicians in Taiwan had thought that after Hu Jintao (
Invading Taiwan is a "big deal" and there have been many voices opposed to the notion in China in the past. However, Wei said, it is increasingly noticeable in recent years that the Chinese leadership is attempting to "cook" the Chinese people's patriotism by taking advantage of rising pro-independence sentiment within Taiwan.
To pave the way for the communists to teach Taiwan a lesson militarily, the Beijing leadership has thought about enacting the anti-secession law, Wei said.
Meanwhile, Wei said some people in Taiwan believe China will not attack Taiwan militarily based on economic considerations.
Wei urged these people not to harbor such beliefs any longer, saying that the communists, as a whole, are basically a daring group willing to take risks. Wei noted that some 50 years ago, the communists had managed to defeat the Chinese Nationalist forces and take control of the whole of China simply because they "dared to."
Believing that Beijing's passing of the anti-secession law is an irreversible trend, Wei suggested that Taiwan adjust its foreign policy and work to strengthen bilateral exchanges with the US and other countries so as to win their support.
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