Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma promised to push for the nation's participation in East Asian integration after normalizing cross-strait economic relations with China.
"It should be easy to negotiate with China on the economic relationship, as closer economic ties will benefit both sides. We don't need to ask that Beijing remove its missiles to discuss economic cooperation," Ma said at the Taipei Mayor's Salon yesterday.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
MISSILES
Asking China to remove missiles targeting Taiwan will be necessary only when negotiating with Beijing on a peace agreement or other matters pertaining to national security, he said.
Ma criticized the DPP for turning the nation's economy into "dead water," victimizing low-income families and small businesses while contributing to rising unemployment.
Accompanied by his running mate, Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), Ma pledged to revive the economy and encourage Taiwanese to invest their foreign capital -- evaluated to be worth about NT$4 trillion (US$123 billion) -- back in Taiwan.
OTHER SECTORS
Ma and Siew promised that if elected they would push for the development of tourism as well as the medical and financial industries, which they said would create 50,000 jobs.
While vowing to bolster the economy with the development of the service industry, Ma said he would not ignore environmental protection, promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make environmental sustainability part of his economic policies.
To further connect with international markets, Ma said he would seek to strengthen ties with ASEAN countries, with the goal of joining the augmented version of the regional organization after successfully normalizing economic relations with China.
AVIATION
In addition to opening up cross-strait direct links, Ma promised to establish "twin golden flight circles" involving the airports in Taiwan, Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Gimpo Airport in Seoul and Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai.
Ma also promised to revise the cap on investment in China and open Taiwan to more Chinese tourists.
Siew said that with the opening to Chinese tourists, New Taiwan dollar and yuan exchange services would also be opened across the nation.
Asked to comment on the recent performance of the stock market, Siew said that unlike President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when he was seeking re-election in 2004, he and Ma would not promise to bring the market to more than 10,000 points, adding that improving the overall economy would help stabilize the stock market.
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
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
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