Taiwan’s allies greatly benefit from nation’s improved relations with Beijing, said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday, adding that a “diplomatic truce” with Beijing meant Taiwan could pool additional resources into solidifying ties with its 23 allies.
Speaking at a reception in Taipei to celebrate the 187th anniversary of the independence of Central America, Ma said the international community — not just Taiwan alone — has benefited from the improvement in Taiwan’s relations with China.
“In the spirit of reconciliation and diplomatic truce, we hope to terminate the diplomatic confrontation with communist China,” Ma said.
“By doing so, we [Taiwan] can allocate more energy and resources to continue to foster and cement our close ties with existing allies,” the president said.
Honduran Ambassador Marlene Villela-Talbott, who also doubles as the president of Pro Tempore of the Central American Integration System Group in Taiwan, thanked Taiwan for its long-standing support and urged Ma to encourage more Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in the region.
Ma recently returned from a five-day trip to South and Central America last month to attend the inauguration of Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo and Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.
Shortly after Ma’s return, Lugo elaborated on his pro-China stance in a television interview, saying Asuncion would break its usual practice by not supporting Taiwan’s UN bid this year.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly said that Lugo’s refusal to back Taiwan’s bid is not an indication of crumbling bilateral ties.
At the reception, the master of ceremonies accidentally mispronounced Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou’s (歐鴻鍊) last name and called him “Minister Hung.”
He then referred to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) as the premier.
The celebration was co-hosted by Nicaraguan Ambassador William Tapia, Honduran Ambassador Marlene Villela-Talbott, Guatemalan Ambassador Ivan Espinoza Farfan and Salvadoran Ambassador Santana Berrios.
In related news, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier Hou (侯清山) confirmed yesterday that Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) would be the president’s special envoy to attend the 25th national independence celebration in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The occasion will also mark a quarter of a century of friendship between Taiwan and the Caribbean 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
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
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