In an interview with a South Korean broadcaster yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
"In any place where there is conflict and anxiety, a leader should seek peace, regardless if it is in the Korean Peninsula or the Taiwan Strait. Chen Shui-bian is the nation's leader. He has a duty and responsibility to direct the nation toward peace and prosperity and not restrict [the nation] to one small corner or to thinking without a long-term vision,'" Lien said during an interview with South Korea's MBC yesterday morning. "My tour was not meant to isolate Chen, but to encourage him to come out of his cocoon."
During Lien's eight-day trip last month he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Given that China's industrial and business importance is growing internationally, Lien said, it is important that Taiwan not be excluded and to seize opportunities for cooperation and business exchange with China.
However, he said, the time is not right for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to unite.
"Both sides must give each other more space and give our descendents more time, to resolve the political problems that still exist," he said.
He reiterated his party's support for the institution of the Republic of China and for the status quo.
He also spoke about the problems facing the party's July 16 chairmanship election.
Aside from worries that the competition between the two contenders, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), might split the party, there has also been a rising tide of support for Lien run again, something he has repeatedly said he doesn't want to do.
"The KMT is a democratic party. Regardless of whether it is an election for the party chairmanship or for party representatives, it will all become second-nature. As long as everyone follows procedure, then this will happen, even if everyone is not used to it yet," he said.
The election will be only the second time the chairman has been popularly-elected by the membership, although Lien had no competition in the last election.
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