People First Party (PFP) spokesman Clarence Wu (吳崑玉) on Wednesday criticized China as an “isolated, autocratic and hellish nation” after being denied entry into China’s Fujian Province.
Wu, whose party supports Taiwan’s unification with China, said on Facebook on Wednesday that he planned to attend the wedding ceremony of a reporter from China’s Xinhua news agency in Fujian’s Sanming City, but the Chinese customs officers in Xiamen refused to issue him a visa on arrival.
“I asked the officers to call the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office’s Party Affairs Bureau for assistance on my behalf, but to no avail. They then decided to send me back to Taiwan,” Wu said.
Wu attributed his denied entry to China to his denouncement of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during the latter’s presidential campaign in 2012 and his refusal to act at the Taiwan Affairs Office’s (TAO) beck and call, which he believes resulted in his being blacklisted by the Chinese government.
“It appears that China remains an isolated, autocratic and hellish nation, where those who submit to its government thrive and those who do not perish. If you [the TAO] intend to turn your friends into foes, then bring it on,” Wu said.
When reached for comment on Thursday, Wu said he had been refused entry into China three times since 2012 and that he had been granted a single-entry permit only once — for a seven-day stay — to attend an academic event in China after he submitted a copy of his itinerary and the invitation letter from the event’s organizer.
Under current regulations, Taiwanese holders of a Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents (台胞證) must apply for either a single-entry or multiple-entry permit before they visit China. Only a few of China’s ports of entry are entitled to issue Taiwanese visitors with visas on arrival.
Wu said he decided to try to get a visa on arrival for his visit on Wednesday after some of his connections in the office had assured him beforehand that he had been removed from China’s blacklist.
“I have absolutely no idea what China’s guidelines for blacklisting people are. I wonder whether those Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] members who make frequent [sic] cross-strait trips also receive the same treatment as me,” Wu said, adding he did not rule out that the names on China’s blacklist were provided by the Ma administration.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS