President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday once again played up the notion of the nation’s soft power, saying its pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai had helped to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait and prevent war.
“Nobody would want to start a war after visiting the Shanghai World Expo — that’s very clear,” he said, twice mistakenly referring to the World Expo as the Flora Expo before correcting himself. “The exercise of Taiwan’s soft power has definitely had a positive effect on the world.”
The nation’s soft power was the main reason the EU recently decided to grant visa-waiver privileges to Republic of China (ROC) passport holders, Ma said while meeting a delegation of Taiwanese that had just returned from the World Expo.
When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power, ROC passport holders enjoyed visa-free entry to only 53 countries, Ma said. During his presidency, eight more countries and regions had offered visa-waiver treatment before the EU also added Taiwan to its list.
Ma said he expected to see more countries include ROC passport holders in their visa-waiver programs next year and hoped to see the number reach 100 next year when the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ROC is to be celebrated.
Meanwhile, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) dismissed allegations by an Internet user that Ma was selling out Taiwan and asked that he produce proof to substantiate his claims.
Lo, who has just launched his own Facebook page, was responding to a post left on his wall by a man calling himself Henry An (安亨利), in which he accused Ma of selling out Taiwan.
In a 2,000-word response, Lo asked An to prove how Ma was selling out Taiwan and called the accusation “defamatory.”
“President Ma has lived in Taiwan for more than 60 years and Taiwan is his home,” Lo wrote. “If Mr An does not sell out his hometown, why should the president? I am also born and bred in Taiwan. I cannot think of any reason why I would help someone sell out Taiwan.”
Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, moved to Taiwan with his family when he was aged one.
Comparing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration with that of the DPP, which was in power from 2000 to 2008, Lo said Taiwan lost six diplomatic allies when the DPP was in power. Under Ma, the country has maintained solid relations with its 23 allied countries and 43 countries or regions have granted ROC passport holders visa-waiver privileges since Ma came to office, he said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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