Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) recently opened an account on Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo, with the hope of enhancing Chinese people’s understanding of the DPP through the site.
Tsai said he found that a lot of Chinese people have misconceptions about the DPP or attributed extremely odd ideas to the party.
“The microblog is an alternative medium of communication in addition to the government and academic channels,” he said, adding that such a platform offers many benefits at little cost.
He said he would share articles posted on his Facebook page on the microblog, but will not write articles especially for the site.
“Democracy is as natural as air,” he said, adding that one should not impose limitations on oneself, but one should also not overdo things.
In a brief introduction of himself on Sina Weibo, Tsai said that he wants “to let you hear different voices, as well as voices from Taiwan.”
The introduction was signed: “a Taiwanese legislator.”
Although the number of visitors to his account is low, netizens from Beijing, as well as Shandong, Guangdong and Fujian provinces, have already showed interest.
It is not uncommon for Taiwanese political figures to be active on Chinese microblogs.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) has been using such microblogs for some time.
With the opening of his account, Tsai has become the first legislator from the pan-green camp to have a presence on the microblog site.
Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬), director of the DPP’s Department of the Internet, said that many Chinese people are curious about the party.
However, Chinese laws prohibit the creation of an account in the name of the DPP, he said.
“We don’t want to open an account just for them to block it,” he said.
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