The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has thrown its support behind the Aviation Safety Council's (ASC) call for the establishment of a cross-strait aviation accident investigation mechanism, an ASC official said on Sunday.
The official said the ASC has been working hard for such a mechanism as part of preparations for the opening of direct cross-strait transportation links.
ASC Chairman Wu Ching-hsiung (吳靜雄) and Executive Director Yang Hung-chih (楊宏智) met with MAC Chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) in the middle of July to discuss the idea, the official said, and Chen supported the idea.
Both sides of the Strait have tentatively agreed that accidents will be handled in line with general international practices and precedents. However, the official said the proposal to establish a cross-strait investigation mechanism has been hampered by politics because Beijing is unwilling to follow the "state-to-state" principle with the ASC.
The official said many issues still have to be negotiated and the ASC will continue discussions with Chinese authorities on the issue.
ASC representatives will attend the sixth seminar on cross-strait aviation safety, which opens today in Urumchi, Xinjiang, and runs through Saturday, he said.
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:
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