Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (
However, Lai Ching-te (
Ma, together with 13 pan-blue local government chiefs, held an international press conference and issued a joint statement protesting the law, which Beijing claims provides a legal basis for China to use "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan moves toward formal independence. The law was passed on March 14.
While Ma expressed his regret about the law in the joint statement he initiated, he was notably absent from a rally organized by the DPP to protest the law under the theme "326 March for Peace and Democracy." Ma also claimed the turnout for the march was lower than estimated by its organizers, a fact which some political observers used to question his position on this issue.
Most pan-green politicians ascribed Ma's downplaying of the march's turnout to his desire to lessen the significance of the event, which international media outlets largely interpreted as a symbol of Taiwan's will to determine its own future in the face of China's military threats to annex Taiwan. But Wu praised Ma in a way seldom seen by the pan-green camp.
The news statement released by the MAC said, "Chairman Ma once served as MAC's vice chairman before, and is very familiar with Chinese affairs. Ma also understands China's strategies to suppress Taiwan and divide Taiwanese people very well. MAC Chairman Wu especially admires Ma as he sided with the Taiwanese people in March, when China passed the Anti-Secession Law despite Taiwan's opposition to the law."
Wu also said in the statement that he wished the KMT, led by Ma, would cooperate with the government to defend the interests of the Taiwanese people.
"China's reluctance to contact Taiwan's government makes it an even more important issue for the ruling and opposition parties to cooperate with each other and reach a consensus while confronting China. I hope Chairman Ma can enhance his communication with the government and team up with it," Wu said.
Wu's statement came as a surprise to DPP legislators, with Lai saying "the DPP caucus respects Wu's right to express his `personal opinion,' but [we] don't think Ma is on the same wavelength as the Taiwanese people who stood up to China's Anti-Secession Law in the `326 March.'"
"Not only did Ma not stand together with the 1 million Taiwanese who participated in the 326 protest against the [Chinese] law, Ma also concealed the actual turnout. Taking the initiative and announcing the number of participants was quite an unusual phenomenon, as Ma never did this before and the turnout he declared, 270,000, was an underestimation," Lai said, adding that "these truths prove that Ma wasn't against the law as firmly as the Taiwanese people."
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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