The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said the selection of an Aborigine as the nation’s representative in Fiji was based on cultural, not political, considerations after the appointment came under fire from a group of pan-blue legislators.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉) yesterday urged the ministry to postpone the appointment of Yohani Isqaqavut, arguing that it would be a diplomatic embarrassment if the representative were recalled after 15 days when the new administration takes office on May 20.
Yohani is scheduled to commence his assignment on May 5.
The two KMT lawmakers said as a political appointee under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government, Yohani, a former spokesman for DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), would not be selected by the incoming KMT administration.
“We have a lot of excellent Aboriginal talent within the party,” Ting said.
Kung ridiculed the DPP government for waiting until the end of its eight-year term before appointing an Aboriginal to be a representative to an Austronesian country.
“Is the DPP government showing respect to the Aboriginal community or just toying with them?” he said.
Ministry spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said it had been Foreign Minister James Huang’s (黃志芳) idea to appoint an Aborigine as the representative to the South Pacific nation last year.
“It was important to find a suitable person from the Aboriginal community, one who has rich administrative experience and is well-versed in foreign affairs. It was a time-consuming process to go through all the necessary steps before we could officially announce the candidate,” Yeh said.
Yeh said Fiji has already been notified about Yohani’s arrival.
In response, Isak Afo, secretary-general of the Taiwan Aboriginal Society said that the KMT should give Yohani a chance.
“It’s very positive to have an Aborigine serve as the representative to Fiji, since both Taiwanese Aborigines and Fijians share an Austronesian cultural heritage,” Isak told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“Yohani is a good choice for the post because he is a person who always puts full effort into whatever he does and he speaks fluent English. Most importantly, the Fijian government has agreed to the assignment and that would imply that the Chinese embassy in Fiji also finds Yohani an acceptable candidate,” Isak said.
While agreeing that the KMT has many suitable Aboriginal candidates, Isak said that the party should name one.
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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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