China's diplomatic rapprochement with Costa Rica has upset cross-strait negotiations on many issues, including the 2008 Olympic torch relay route, a senior Mainland Affairs Council official said yesterday.
"It is just like someone slapping you in the face. How could this facilitate negotiations?" the official said.
"The atmosphere is not good," he said.
The ambit of cross-strait talks includes issues such as the 2008 Olympic torch relay route, opening the country to Chinese tourists and direct cargo and passenger charter flights.
On April 26, Beijing announced that the Olympic torch would travel to Taiwan from Vietnam before continuing on to Hong Kong. Taipei immediately rejected the itinerary, arguing that the route belittled Taiwan and depicted it as being part of China.
The MAC official denied local media reports yesterday claiming that cross-strait negotiations would resume shortly.
In Beijing, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) also denied yesterday that negotiations on the torch relay route would resume soon.
In a news release yesterday, the council reiterated that "if there is negotiation with China on the torch relay for the 2008 Olympic Games, the talks must be held under the principles of safeguarding the nation's sovereignty, dignity and cross-strait parity."
"Although China has claimed it would renegotiate on torch relay route, so far it has so far failed to do so," the council said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a