The Executive Yuan said yesterday it would ask its agencies to be more sensitive after a comic strip designed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to promote a cross-strait economic pact was criticized as discriminatory.
Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said government agencies should be careful in publications not to offend anyone.
The remarks came after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday criticized the MOEA cartoon, which was designed to promote an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.
The DPP said the comic strip was “extremely offensive and derogatory” because it described those who oppose the ECFA as stupid and uninformed about current events.
Su yesterday urged the public not to be offended.
“[Different government agencies] have different needs and considerations when promoting policies in different ways and for different purposes,” he said.
Asked whether the Executive Yuan would instruct the MOEA to scrap the comic strip, Su said it respected the authority of the ministry.
At a separate setting yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chu Fong-chi (朱鳳芝) described the comic strip as “ridiculous.”
“[The comic strip] should help the ministry promote this policy, but instead will create ethnic division,” she said.
The male character in the comic strip, “Yi-ge” (一哥), is a middle-aged, Hoklo-speaker from Tainan.
He is described as knowing little about the ECFA or economic matters and works as a salesman in a traditional industry.
He has a vocational school education, speaks “Taiwanese Mandarin” and is usually content to follow others. But when it comes to protecting himself, he “goes all out.” The profile says he is the kind of person who talks tough but never takes action.
In contrast, the female character, Fa-sao (發嫂) is an active, self-motivated and highly capable, married woman who is fluent in English, Mandarin, Hoklo and Japanese.
Her profile says she has a thirst for knowledge and knows what the ECFA is about.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods