The true test for the success of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government is two-fold: whether it can lift the country’s economy without resorting to corruption, and whether China will make concessions in response to increased cross-strait exchanges, said Graham Watson, the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, in an interview with the Taipei Times on Tuesday.
Watson came to Taipei with an eight-person delegation from the parliament’s liberal group.
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) tried to establish more freedom and independence, the KMT wants to achieve the same thing through better relations with China, he said.
“I don’t know who’s right, we will see, but if the cross-strait policy of the current government is working well, then it will soon lead to meaningful participation for Taiwan in bodies such as the WHO because there should be some movement on the side of the PRC [People’s Republic of China], it should not only be movements on the Taiwan side,” he said.
“The tests would be fundamentally two things: One, can [the KMT] manage the economy properly without corruption coming back in, as was the case when they were last in power, and second, will their policy of closer relationships across the Strait lead to concessions by China towards Taiwan?” he said.
Watson said he had visited Taiwan at least eight times and “the reason for doing this is to show members of the European Parliament how impressive Taiwan’s achievements are, not only economically but also in terms of social development, [such as] the development of democracy since the lifting of martial law 21 years ago.”
Saying that he earlier had a good meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Watson said Ma was “clearly a new-style Chinese Nationalist Party” member who is a good communicator and will represent Taiwan well to the outside world.
“[However,] in politics the test for all of us is how much we can convince our own people, and that will be his job for the next four years,” Watson said.
“[The improvement of relations between KMT and China] is a remarkable development,” Watson said. “President Ma stressed to us during our meeting that there would be no reunification — he also said no independence of course — [and] we must give the new government the chance to prove themselves.”
Watson also discussed Taiwan’s participation in international forums.
“It is our view that you cannot exclude a country as important as Taiwan from meaningful participation in things like world health talks … It makes sense that Taiwan should be involved in the WHO and I hope that the improvement in cross-strait relations will help achieve that.”
As for his thoughts on the opening of direct cross-strait flights across the Strait, Watson said: “Taiwan is already [economically] dependent on China — with US$60 billion worth of investment there. A good long-term strategy for Taiwan would be to diversify investments [from China] to other countries.”
Watson suggested Taiwan also needed to invest more in education so that it can better manage the transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
Asked his views on reports of policemen reportedly trying to snatch national flags from civilians during the recent visit of a Chinese envoy, as well as the ensuing Wild Strawberry demonstration, Watson said in a democracy there has to be freedom for demonstrations.
“It’s very difficult for me to judge [the status of human rights] from outside the country, but I think everybody would recognize that Taiwan is much freer than most countries in Asia,” he said. “[As is the case with other democratic counties,] students are often in the vanguard of movements for civil freedom, [and] you have a vibrant democracy here.”
“If governments do not respond to public concern, in the end they are voted out of office. And that must be [Ma’s] choice how far he responds,” he said.
Watson said the delegation also talked with local politicians about opening up of government procurement policy to European countries, the issue of death penalty and the issue of visa waiver.
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,