The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday criticized Evergreen Group founder Chang Yung-fa (張榮發) for his endorsement of the so-called “1992 consensus,” saying that he spoke as Beijing’s mouthpiece despite his conscience.
Chang spoke about something he does not know about, while not saying something that he does know, TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝), who served as Mainland Affairs Council chairman from 1991 to 1994 under then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), told a press conference yesterday.
The tycoon said on Tuesday that he “simply cannot agree with the denial of the [1992] consensus by a ‘specific’ presidential candidate.”
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, has denied the existence of such a consensus, while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who is seeking re-election, insists that the consensus exists and that it serves as the foundation of cross-strait exchanges.
Huang, who has also denied the existence of the consensus, questioned why Chang was so sure about the authenticity of the consensus, asking: “Were you there? Were you informed by the negotiators that the consensus was reached?”
Chang, who also owns EVA Air, would know if Taiwan had successful air-transportation negotiations with China, Huang said, adding that the Ma administration was in such a rush to reach a deal with Beijing that it failed to defend the interests of the nation’s airline operators.
The results were disastrous, Huang said, as the direct flights across the Taiwan Strait were defined as “domestic routes” — a belittlement of Taiwan’s sovereignty — and Taiwan’s airlines did not secure “beyond rights,” the fifth freedom of air travel, from their Chinese counterparts.
A group of business leaders have in recent weeks publicly endorsed the so-called “1992 consensus” and have appeared to offer their support for Ma, including Hon Hai Precision Industry chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), Ruentex Financial Group chairman Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), Yulon Group chairman Kenneth Yen (嚴凱泰), Formosa Plastics Corp president Wang Wen-yuan (王文淵) and Delta Electronics chairman Bruce Cheng (鄭崇華).
Two more business leaders joined them yesterday, with General Chamber of Commerce of the ROC chairman Lawrence Chang (張平沼) and Far Eastern Group chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) both saying that they would support the candidate who “takes no risks with peace and stability across the [Taiwan] Strait.”
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