Premier Frank Hsieh (
He said the opposition parties should comply with government procedure.
Hsieh added that the pan-blues should not compete with each other to obtain better treatment in China, or to make concessions on cross-strait issues.
Hsieh said that he welcomed any activity which could promote better cross-strait relations, but he hoped that anyone who travels to China will keep Taiwan's interest in mind.
Hsieh made the remarks as he attended the funeral of People First Party (PFP) Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng's (
Meanwhile, Beijing has invited PFP Chairman James Soong (
Speaking to reporters at the memorial service, Soong said he was still meditating on whether or not he would accept the offer made by Jia Qinglin (
However, Soong did not refrain from casting cold water on Hsieh's comments yesterday.
Since he is not a public servant, Soong said, he is under no obligation to report to the government prior to a possible trip to China.
Additionally, Soong said, should he make the trip, it would be better not to report to the government beforehand to avoid being viewed as a government delegate or a cross-strait emissary.
Speaking about the delegation that the party's legislative caucus is sending to China this month to discuss agricultural issues, Soong emphasized that while the delegation is not representative of the government, it will communicate with the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Council of Agriculture prior to its departure.
The reason the delegation will communicate with the government is not because it is seeking permission to act on the government's behalf, but rather because the PFP wants to understand what would constitute viable agricultural policies and reflect the needs of the Taiwanese people, in order to convey this to the Chinese government, Soong 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
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