President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) lashed out at China's "one country, two systems" formula yesterday, saying that Hong Kong and Macau's economic and social failures in the wake of their return to China proved the formula is a fraud.
Calling Hong Kong and Macau a "warning to Taiwan's 23 million people," Chen said. "It is impossible for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to conform politically as long as China does not have real democratic elections, nationalizes its army and lacks freedom of speech and religion."
The "one country, two systems" formula was supposed to guarantee Hong Kong and Macau would retain their capitalist, free-market system after their return to China's sovereignty.
"Experience has clearly proven the so-called `one country, two systems' that was initially designed for the return of Hong Kong are empty words, false words," Chen said. "The `two systems' is fake, the `one country' is true."
Chen's comments to a group of visiting Taiwanese businesspeople based in Hong Kong and Macau came one day after he called on the Beijing authorities to "address the fact that the Republic of China exists."
"The situation faced by Hong Kong and Macau is not how many promises and guarantees China can give but whether or not China can implement democracy and law and order," Chen said.
Citing China's refusal to allow Hong Kong voters to directly elect their leader in 2007 and their full legislature in 2008, Chen criticized Beijing's attempts to intervene in the territory's politics.
"China's one party, dictatorial system works not only like a bird cage that confines the peoples of Hong Kong and Macau freedom and democratic aspirations, but as a manacle that severely slows Hong Kong and Macau's footsteps toward progress and development," he said.
Chen told his visitors that the people of Taiwan hope for peace, normalization of cross-strait relations and for the people of Hong Kong and Macau to enjoy real freedom and democracy.
"But developments are heading in just the opposite direction," he said.
"The Chinese government has tried to use the `one country, two systems' formula to tackle cross-strait issues," he said. "But the biggest contradiction between two sides of the Strait lies not in their separate governments but in the choice of a democratic system and life styles."
He said the "Anti-Secession" Law enacted by Beijing can't prevent independence sentiments and will only widen the rift between the two sides.
He called on China's leaders to follow the global trend of embracing the universal values of democracy, human rights and peace. He said they should speed up political reforms to make China a democracy and "write a new page of progress and prosperity in history for the Chinese people in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau."
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the