The first international travel guidebook to focus exclusively on Taipei sparked controversy yesterday as a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilor denounced the city government, saying it had inserted "pan-blue viewpoints" into the book.
The travel book, Insight City Guide: Taipei, uses more than 30 pages to introduce the political situation in Taiwan. In addition to describing the March 19, 2004 assassination attempt on the president and vice president as an "election drama," the book tells its readers that the term "Taiwanese" makes some Mainlanders feel "uncomfortable."
"The Taipei City Government promoted the pan-blues' political viewpoint to foreign tourists through the book ... It turned a simple travel guide into a mouthpiece for the pan-blue camp," DPP Taipei City Councilor Lan Shih-tsung (
Lan said that the content of the travel guide came to his attention after he received a complaint from a resident, who found the "biased comments" in it to be offensive.
"[Taipei City Mayor] Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma, who is also the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, yesterday denied interfering with the content of the book.
"Did the city councilor read the book? Is that book published by the Taipei City Government? Apparently they got it wrong. The book is published by a German company," Ma said.
The book was published by the German Langenscheidt Publishing Group in May.
Taipei is the first Asian city featured in its "Insight City Guide" series.
Ma said the city government explored opportunities to promote the city with various publishing companies, but it only helped promote the book and had not reviewed the content before it was published.
The city government held a press conference in May to introduce the book and invited the company's representative in Singapore to celebrate the publication of the guide.
Ma also wrote the preface for the book, which details the city's major tourist attractions including Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the 228 Memorial Museum and Taipei 101. Traditional Taiwanese food including stinky tofu, pearl milk tea and oyster omelettes are also featured in the guide.
Ma yesterday said that the book's content reflected "foreign viewpoints" and was "totally independent."
"Calling the 319 incident an `election drama' is a modest description," he said.
In response, Lan said Ma was trying to shift the responsibility.
"Is it necessary for a travel book to mention the 319 incident?" he said.
The city government should not ignore its responsibility as its official logo appeared many times in the book, he added.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods