A group of opposition and independent legislators questioned yesterday the appropriateness of the dual citizenship of Academica Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Lien-fu (
Responding to Chiang's remarks in a meeting of the Legislature's Sci-Tech and Information Committee, Wong said that as the head of Academia Sinica, he would be completely devoted to the nation, adding that he had already given up his career in the US prior to returning to Taiwan.
Furthermore, he said that the recently passed Nationality Act (
Wong said that allowing academic researchers to hold dual citizenship can only benefit the progress and development of academic research in Taiwan.
The Presidential Office also defended Wong, saying that it is legal for political appointees to have dual citizenship and that professionalism was more important than nationality.
"The appointment of Acade-mia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey is legal," Presidential Office Spokesman David Lee (李南陽) said.
Lee said that as Wong is a prominent biochemist and his job description does not involve matters of national secrecy, it was inappropriate to use Wong's dual nationality as a pretext to prevent such an outstanding talent from serving the country.
Lee said that while Article 20 of the Nationality Act states that citizens of the ROC who have obtained nationality from a foreign country cannot assume public positions, there are exceptions.
Lee said that Wong should be considered an exception.
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