Beijing's gestures in a recent press conference are "unacceptable" and politically motivated, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, receiving China's agricultural and transportation proposals with suspicion.
"It's unacceptable but not unexpected," Council Vice Chairman and spokesman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) told reporters yesterday, adding that the council would not stand for Beijing's "serious manipulation" of the Presidential Office's seven-point statement announced last Tuesday.
You added that Beijing was intent on bypassing the government and working with opposition party representatives.
"This is the blind spot in their ideologically driven approach," You said, referring to remarks from Beijing that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Li Weiyi (李維一) said yesterday during a scheduled press conference that the seven-point statement put restrictions on economic, educational and cultural exchanges, and put a halt to cooperation. He said the statement was like backing up a car -- referring to the statement's failure to produce progress -- and was not in the Taiwanese people's interests, according to government mouthpiece the People's Daily yesterday.
The People's Daily further reported that He Shizhong (何世忠), director of the TAO's economic bureau, reiterated standing invitations, proposing that Taiwanese agricultural delegations visit China and indicating China's willingness to visit central and southern Taiwan to boost agricultural trade.
Lee further assured reporters that Beijing did not have any plans to adopt any supplementary legislation to complement the "Anti-Secession" Law and that Beijing was willing to make "special arrangements" for Taiwan's participation at the World Health Organization's annual summit. The caveat, however, would be a recognition of the "one China" principle.
According to the People's Daily, Lee also made concessions on an "exchange of opinion" on cargo and passenger charter flights between Taiwan and China for the first time.
Lee's remarks were met with skepticism in Taipei, however, with MAC Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) calling the moves "insincere."
"Just because they say there will be no supplementary laws doesn't mean that is so. They say they love peace and Taiwan, but they continue to increase their military capabilities, which are targeted at Taiwan," Wu said.
Fu Don-cheng (
"At this time, we think that it is inappropriate and would harm cross-strait interaction," Fu 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