China is willing to start negotiations with Taiwan as soon as possible on the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) proposed by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a senior Chinese official said yesterday.
Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅) told the Strait Forum being held in Xiamen that China would cooperate with Taiwan by preparing for the negotiation process.
The Ma administration’s plan to sign an ECFA with Beijing has been fiercely debated, with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and some political observers saying it would make Taiwan too economically dependent on China. The proposed pact was criticized during yesterday’s protest in Taipei.
Wang also announced an increase in the number of Chinese allowed to visit Taiwan, saying the government would try to have “more than 600,000 visits this year.”
He also said more Taiwanese agricultural products would be purchased, with delegations making two trips to purchase fruit, vegetables and other agricultural products, one in the first half of the year, and one in the second half. He also said that China would initiate investments by Chinese companies in Taiwan.
On Saturday Wang announced that five more Chinese ports had been opened to direct shipping to Taiwan, bringing the total number of ports to 68.
He also announced more measures to boost cross-strait shipping, including granting tax exemptions, allowing the establishment of representative offices and moving to increase maritime safety.
“The people are the foundation and the driving force, the future is in their hands and the results will be shared by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Wang said yesterday.
Meanwhile, People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Jia Qinglin (賈慶林) said yesterday that the Strait Forum would be an important platform for interactions between the people on each side of the Taiwan Strait and that China wanted to use it to expand exchanges.
Jia also extended an official welcome to DPP members to “expand exchanges and travel more frequently to China.”
Cross-strait relations have improved to unprecedented levels, and that the two sides should take this hard-earned development opportunity to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, Jia said, adding that this was the wish of both sides.
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