Dismissing Beijing's criticism of the first Taiwan-Africa Summit, Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday that the event was not a move toward independence and that China is the one conducting "checkbook diplomacy."
"The Taiwan-Africa Summit is a normal diplomatic activity, but Beijing's suppression of Taiwan's diplomatic presence has become so hysterical that it considers it a move toward independence," he said.
Huang made the remarks in response to reporters' questions about the cost of the summit at a press conference held after the first session of the meeting's closed-door discussions.
Huang also rejected Beijing's allegation that the summit was part of the administration's "dollar diplomacy,"and pointed out that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) promised to double China's aid to Africa from last year's level by 2009 at the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation held in Beijing last November.
Hu promised US$3 billion in loans, US$2 billion in export credits and a US$5 billion fund to encourage Chinese investment in Africa.
Huang said that Taiwan did not offer any new aid package or loan programs to any of the five African allies at yesterday's summit, although they were thinking of proposing an aid package similar to the "Jung Pang Project."
The "Jung Pang Project" refers to a NT$7.5 billion (US$250 million) investment project that Chen announced during his visit to Central America in October 2005. The funding is allocated to help the development of the nation's 12 allies in Central and South America.
Huang said he has visited Africa four times and believes the African market possesses great potential for further development. Using a Swaziland-based Taiwanese company as an example, Huang said the firm is helping the kingdom grow organic cotton.
President Chen Shui-Bian (
Taiwan is willing to share its experiences and achievements in this area, Chen said, but the cooperation and assistance must meet the individual needs of each country.
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
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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