The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday reiterated warnings that strained ties with China could not be efficiently mended without official government-level contacts.
The remarks, made during a scheduled press conference, came a few days before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) departs for his closely watched trip to China.
While council spokesman You Ying-lung (
You said national interest should come before party interest.
His cautionary remarks were followed by the release of a report highlighting the absymal living conditions in China.
CRITICAL REPORT
The title of the report, China has become one of the nations most unfit for human habitation, was greeted with a round of laughter by reporters when it was announced.
The council's report cited, among other rankings, the UN's Human Development Report for 2004. The UN report includes a human development index that measures achievement, by country, in securing health, knowledge and a decent standard of living. China was ranked 94th last year.
The council's report covered topics from sandstorms and water distribution to religious freedom. It begins with a caution that China's recent sandstorms and so-called "black winds" would interfere with outdoor activities and transportation and then highlighted various environmental hazards.
The report also cited obscure statistics on the living standards in China. For example it noted that of the 10 million people who were deaf or mute in China, 60 to 80 percent had become so because of the poor quality of medical care. It said that only 50 percent of the trash is properly disposed of or treated.
"The council wants to remind Taiwanese who plan on living, traveling or investing in China that they need to be aware of the risks involved," You said.
STATISTICS QUESTIONED
The council's report attributed its information to a UN report on 20 cities around the world that are "uninhabitable," with 16 Chinese cities on the list.
However, when the Taipei Times called to verify the report, the council admitted that the researcher who had written it had taken the information from the Web site of China's official Xinhua News Agency.
The council said that the UN report had not been made public.
The council's report comes just after the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation issued a statement warning of the dangers of doing business in China.
The foundation's statistics showed that there had been a 15 percent increase in incidents of bodily harm or injury to Taiwanese businesspeople working in 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