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.
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
RSS