Penghu might become a relay station between Taiwan and China, similar to Kinmen, Premier Frank Hsieh said yesterday.
"Penghu is definitely qualified to apply, as a special case, to handle direct transportation with China," he said. "The possibility of passing such an application is quite high and we will seriously consider it."
Hsieh made the remarks in Penghu yesterday morning in response to media inquiries about Penghu becoming a relay station under the "mini three links" plan.
The "mini three links," established in January 2001, opened the door for residents of Kinmen and Matsu to travel to Xiamen in China's Fujian Province without restrictions.
Hsieh said the earliest Penghu would take such a role would be next month. He did not say, however, if any government agency is already drawing up plans.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday that the premier was referring to direct transport for religious pilgrimages.
Wu, however, said that the government would consider allowing other forms of direct transportation for Penghu, as a special case.
Hsieh went to Penghu yesterday for a ceremony marking the upgrading of the National Penghu Institute of Technology to National Penghu University.
Meanwhile, China's preferential tariff exemptions on the import of 15 types of Taiwanese fruit took effect yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai (
They are duty bound, he said, to educate farmers on all the pros and cons of the offer so that they could make an informed decision.
Lai urged farmers to review their long-term interests to ensure they don't become the biggest loser in the game.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus leader Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said the government has been blocking fruit exports to China for political reasons.
Cho said that it baffles him that Taiwanese fruit is banned from going to China when it is exported all over the world.
KMT Legislator Tseng Yung-chuan (
Tseng dismissed media speculation that the KMT is planning to set up an agricultural development fund and four fruit-trading centers in China to help promote agricultural exports.
(Additional reported by Shih Hsiu-chuan)
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift