Journalists are always on the lookout for the unexpected. However, when visits by foreign officials change the behavior of people here and turn Taiwanese against Taiwanese, the situations that emerge can border on the bizarre.
One such incident occurred yesterday, when the management of a five-star hotel verbally clashed with guests as if they were sworn enemies. Even more disturbing was the sight of service professionals pulling, shoving and chasing people in the hotel lobby.
All this happened yesterday morning at the landmark Grand Hotel in Taipei, when members of the Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) complained over the hotel’s unilateral cancelation of a room they had reserved for a press conference.
“Yes, we simply don’t want to rent a room to you, so what? What can you do?” a hotel employee told TFOT president Chow Mei-li (周美里).
While such words could have been expected of an overzealous young employee, this wasn’t the case; the speaker was the hotel’s assistant manager for food and beverages, Chen Wei-teh (陳維德).
Earlier, while arguing with Chow, sales manager Michael Chen (陳行中) asked political commentator Paul Lin (林保華), who is also head of the Taiwan Youth Anti-Communist Corps, to take down a headband with his organization’s name written on it, saying it was inappropriate to do so “in a business establishment in operation.”
“I know that, but we are an officially registered NGO [non-governmental organization]. How can it be ‘inappropriate’ to show the organization’s name in a business establishment that is open to the public?” Lin asked.
Chen did not answer.
Such clashes pitting Taiwanese against Taiwanese occurred over a delegation headed by Sichuan Province Governor Jiang Jufeng (蔣巨峰), who was taking part in a symposium on business and tourism in Sichuan at the hotel.
One of the hotel employees said the Grand Hotel management was just trying to avoid an “unpleasant sight” for the Chinese guests.
Yesterday’s unusual incident wasn’t the first one since Jiang arrived on Saturday night.
On Sunday, when Tibet support groups staged a demonstration at Taipei Zoo’s Panda Hall as Jiang was visiting, zoo officials rerouted Jiang’s tour to avoid his coming into contact with protesters.
Oddly enough, it appears that Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was not told of the change and waited at the main entrance to greet Jiang, only to see Jiang’s convoy pass him by.
More worrying, while the host of an event would normally oversee media affairs, when Jiang visited the zoo, members of his delegation told reporters what to do, with zoo and city officials standing aside, silent.
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