The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is expected to reinstate the Department of China Affairs as its “first step toward positive and active engagement with China,” DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said yesterday.
A proposal to reinstate the department, which was merged with the Department of International Affairs in August 2007, is scheduled to be discussed at a Central Executive Committee meeting today, Wang said.
Reinstating the department was part of the campaign platform of DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who was elected in May after vowing to improve the party’s understanding and interaction with China.
The department would be tasked with gathering information, as well as the analysis and promotion of bilateral engagement and research on security and cross-strait peace, Wang said.
The next step would be the establishment of a committee tentatively called the “China Affairs Committee,” which would include party heavyweights and academics, and would function as the DPP’s top China policymaking body, he said.
A series of forums on China affairs and policies would also be held, Wang said.
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), hailed as the front-runner to head the committee, told reporters yesterday that he did not rule out accepting the offer, but would not force the situation.
More cross-strait interaction is good for the DPP and direct communication would avoid misunderstandings, Hsieh said.
Hsieh said he would like to visit China on a humanitarian visit or cultural exchange before accepting a China-related position.
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