Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday questioned Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) at the legislature on the prudence of using “Chinese Taipei” for the nation’s membership bids for international organizations, saying the name would mislead foreigners into believing Taiwan is part of China.
“The most accurate translation of ‘Chinese Taipei’ is ‘the Taipei that belongs to China.’ Our foreign friends will think we have agreed to be part of China if we use that term as our title in the international arena,” DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said. “Only unificationists would use the term ‘Chinese Taipei.’”
Chai said that using “Chinese Taipei” was equivalent to downgrading the nation’s sovereignty, was an insult to its dignity and displayed shocking disrespect toward the public.
Lai said she had no idea how foreigners would interpret the term “Chinese Taipei,” but that the term had been used on many occasions.
Lai made her remarks at a breakfast meeting with DPP caucus members.
Lai was invited to brief the caucus about the Straits Exchange Foundation’s (SEF) resumption of talks with its counterpart, China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) delineated the caucus’ requests for the talks: that the “1992 consensus” not be described as an agreement and that direct cargo and charter flights be worked out by the SEF and ARATS, but require approval by the legislature.
“By law the SEF reports to the MAC, the MAC reports to the Cabinet and the Cabinet reports to the legislature. Of course, any agreement between the SEF and ARATS will be reviewed and approved by the legislature,” Lai said.
The DPP lawmakers said their second major concern, in addition to the nation’s title in international organizations, was expeditiously launching direct cargo flights across the strait.
Lai assured DPP lawmakers that the SEF would seek to launch cargo flights, but that the start date for such flights would be delayed.
“We need to talk about certain mechanisms in greater detail. It takes time,” Lai said.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) demanded that Lai step down if the SEF fails to negotiate a start date for direct cargo flight at next week’s talks.
“Direct cargo flights are what will really benefit Taiwan, not passenger flights or opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists,” Tsai 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:
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