Government Information Office Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
"We hope [Lien] clearly delivers the message that there is only one China. But according to our own definition, this `one China' means the Republic of China," Cheng said.
The Cabinet spokesman was responding to media queries ahead of Lien's upcoming visit to China. Lien will fly to Beijing today with a group of business leaders and academics. He is to attend an economic summit tomorrow and meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
"If Mr. Lien also recognizes this country, I would urge him to ask the Chinese government to stop oppressing Taiwan's self-expression on all fronts in the international community. Please ask [the Chinese government] to put an end to the idea of terminating us," Cheng said during a press conference after the Cabinet's weekly meeting.
Cheng said that what President Chen Shui-bian (
"As for other issues that may concern the public, they should be left for the government to take care of through official negotiations or peace talks," Cheng said.
Although Cheng said the president was hoping that Lien would deliver a clear message to Hu about Taiwan's sovereignty, the former KMT chairman had already made it clear that he would not be the president's messenger, adding that he would address issues such as direct flights across the Taiwan Strait.
About 100 Taiwanese independence activists yesterday protested against Lien's trip and the Chinese Communist Party, alleging that Taiwan's interests were being sold out. Protesters said they feared that the meeting would end in disaster.
"We strongly protest against the talks between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party," a demonstrator shouted through a megaphone outside the KMT headquarters in Taipei.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (
The statement said the protesters feared the KMT would sell out Taiwan's interests in a "closed-door meeting" in Beijing and demanded that the party make the results of the meeting public.
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