Most Taiwanese believe next week’s visit by China’s top cross-strait negotiator will bring more benefits rather than disadvantages to the country, a recent government survey found.
Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), is scheduled to arrive in Taipei on Monday for a second round of cross-strait talks.
HELPFUL
The survey showed that about 50 percent of respondents thought Chen’s visit would be helpful to facilitate further development of cross-strait economic relations, while 22 percent thought his coming could harm national sovereignty.
According to the survey, conducted by the Executive Yuan’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission on Oct. 14 and Oct. 15, 73 percent of the public was aware of Chen’s upcoming visit.
The survey showed that 51 percent of those polled thought Chen’s visit to the country would help the Chinese understand Taiwan’s democratic experience, while 47 percent thought that cross-strait military and diplomatic confrontation would ease as a result.
The survey revealed that about 20 percent of respondents believed Chen’s visit would have an unfavorable impact on Taiwan’s sovereignty, while 61 percent disagreed.
Regarding the protests planned by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and other independence groups against Chen, 27 percent of respondents were in favor of the rallies while 60 percent voiced their objections.
AGREEMENTS
As much as 68 percent of respondents said that the two sides should sign an agreement on establishing a testing mechanism for food safety, and 59 percent said agreements on cross-strait direct transportation and charter flights should be settled through the upcoming negotiations between Chen and his Taiwanese counterpart, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤).
The survey indicated 66 percent of respondents would like to see Chen express goodwill about Taiwan’s hope for entry into the WHO, an issue not included on the agenda for the Chiang-Chen meeting.
A total of 1,085 valid samples of adults aged over 20 were collected.
The survey was one of a series of government actions to win public support for inviting Chen. Pro-localization activists and organizations contend that the government will sell out Taiwan’s interests during Chen’s stay in the country.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,