Before China can fulfill its promise to deliver two giant pandas to Taiwan, officials from Beijing and Taipei will have to sit down and discuss the practical implications, such as whether the animals will be able to survive in Taiwan, the Cabinet said yesterday.
"It is just not as easy as they [Chinese officials] have said," Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (
Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Cho said that the giant panda is a protected and endangered species, and Taiwan will have to make sure it is capable of taking care of the animals before accepting the gift.
He said Beijing's offer to send the pandas to Taiwan had a political motive.
"They [Chinese officials] made it sound like the offer only concerns the two sides of the Strait and that nobody is allowed to interfere. They feel they can do as they please, because they do not regard us as a foreign country. However, what concerns us more is whether the pandas can survive in Taiwan," Cho said.
He said that he would propose a meeting between the two governments to discuss the issue and invite experts to work out practical details.
"Pandas have a right to survive as well. Taiwan values the spirit of the right to survive [as a nation], so we should spend more time to make sure the species can live in our environment before we welcome them," he said.
China has meanwhile started a selection process to find two suitable pandas.
Beijing is looking for pandas between 18 months and four years old, the State Forestry Administration said.
China will also try to engage Taiwanese in finding names for the animals.
"We will solicit names for them -- their infant names from the mainland people and their formal names from the Taiwan people," Xinhua quoted administration spokesman Cao Qingyao as saying.
According to the Mainland Affairs Council, the Chinese government has tried to give pandas to Taiwan three times since 1992, but the offer was turned down each time, as evaluations by local experts have shown that current facilities and manpower in Taiwan are not capable of accommodating giant pandas.
Apart from environmental concerns, the financial implications of taking care of giant pandas will be another issue for Taiwan.
According to an evaluation by the Taipei City Zoo, it will cost around NT$53.4 million (US$1.7 million) per year to take care of a single panda.
This includes a US$1 million donation to the giant panda preservation fund in China.
The annual budget for the Taipei City Zoo is NT$400 million.
The Chinese government has been using the popular animalss since 1950 as part of a "panda diplomacy" approach. It has given away 25 pandas to nine countries and Hong Kong.
Three batches of banana sauce imported from the Philippines were intercepted at the border after they were found to contain the banned industrial dye Orange G, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. From today through Sept. 2 next year, all seasoning sauces from the Philippines are to be subject to the FDA’s strictest border inspection, meaning 100 percent testing for illegal dyes before entry is allowed, it said in a statement. Orange G is an industrial coloring agent that is not permitted for food use in Taiwan or internationally, said Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智), head of the FDA’s Northern Center for
The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
About 4.2 million tourist arrivals were recorded in the first half of this year, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The growth continues to be consistent, with the fourth quarter of this year expected to be the peak in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that it plans to promote Taiwan overseas via partnerships and major events. From January to June, 9.14 million international departures were recorded from Taiwan, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, with 3.3 million headed for Japan, 1.52 million for China and 832,962 to South Korea,
REWRITING HISTORY: China has been advocating a ‘correct’ interpretation of the victory over Japan that brings the CCP’s contributions to the forefront, an expert said An elderly Chinese war veteran’s shin still bears the mark of a bullet wound he sustained when fighting the Japanese as a teenager, a year before the end of World War II. Eighty years on, Li Jinshui’s scar remains as testimony to the bravery of Chinese troops in a conflict that killed millions of their people. However, the story behind China’s overthrow of the brutal Japanese occupation is deeply contested. Historians broadly agree that credit for victory lies primarily with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led Republic of China (ROC) Army. Its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a
RSS