Hundreds of Chinese thronged the Taipei 101 yesterday, braving a blustery wind and intermittent drizzle on the eve of the nation’s fifth direct presidential election. For most, it was the first ringside view of an open election.
“It seems so extreme here. This campaigning is something that would never be allowed in China,” said Wang Liping, a 42-year-old from Chongqing in central China, at the cloud-shrouded observatory deck of Taipei 101.
“China’s way is better in that the new leaders are those selected for their experience, in a systematic manner ... I don’t think it’s a good idea to elect someone who has no experience just because they have more votes,” Wang said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s boisterous election campaign is broadcast live by more than half a dozen news channels throughout the day, with candidate pledges, motorcades, firecrackers and rallies covered in excruciating detail.
“It’s pretty good to have democracy, but it wastes a lot of time and resources,” said another tourist from Jiangsu Province in eastern China, who wore a leather jacket with a camera around his neck.
He gave only his family name, Wu (吳), reflecting a nervousness among many Chinese to discuss democracy and politics. Many Chinese refused to comment on the elections.
One who started to do so was pulled away by his wife.
However, Wu, who was holding a shopping bag as he walked around Taipei 101 shopping mall with two friends, said: “China’s democracy is different from Taiwan’s.”
“Taiwan’s democracy is loud and explicit, but China’s is more subtle and low key. The style is different, you wear a suit, we wear jeans,” he said.
The measured warmth is a far cry from the anger and tumult of the nation’s first direct presidential election in 1996, which an infuriated China saw as tantamount to a declaration of independence as it fired missiles into waters near the nation.
“I want [KMT presidential candidate] Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election] to win tomorrow,” said Li Jinhui, from Liaoning Province in northeast China, watching the changing of the guard in front of a giant statue of Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), along with scores of other Chinese tourists.
He shrugged off the historical enmity between the two sides with a laugh.
“The Nationalist government and the Communist Party are both the same now, they’re both Chinese. The past doesn’t matter,” he said.
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