Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday said he does not agree with the slogan “Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan,” since the two nations differ in terms of sovereignty.
Responding to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher’s (黃偉哲) question about the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, Jiang said that many in Taiwan who have been closely following the protests in Hong Kong are worried about potential action by China, and claim that what is happening today in Hong Kong might happen in the future in Taiwan.
“But I hope it would be ‘today’s Taiwan, tomorrow’s Hong Kong,’” Jiang said.
“Hong Kong, as part of China, only enjoys a certain degree of autonomy. It does not have complete sovereignty, so its status differs significantly from that of the ROC [Republic of China] Taiwan, which is an independent, sovereign nation,” Jiang said.
Huang was not as optimistic as the premier, saying that the reason why Taiwanese have been closely watching the protests in Hong Kong is because Taiwanese and Hong Kongers have both felt pressure from the Chinese government.
Jiang said the relationship between Beijing and Hong Kong is one of a central government directing and supervising a local government, but the relationship between Taipei and Beijing is utterly different in nature.
“So there is no need to worry that we could be subject to pressure from Beijing, as Hong Kong is now,” the premier said.
He added that he supports Hong Kongers’ demand for full-fledged elections and hoped that one day, the territory’s leaders would also emerge from free party competition.
“We do not know how long it would take for them to reach this stage — a process that would need negotiations between the people of Hong Kong and their government — but we believe they could achieve it and are optimistic about it,” Jiang said.
Asked whether he was also sympathetic to the tactics of the protesters in Hong Kong, Jiang said he could not comment on the issue or determine whether it was in violation of the law, as he was not present at the scene.
Some have accused the premier of holding double standards — for showing his approval of the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong, while denouncing the Sunflower movement in Taiwan.
“While the right to peaceful demonstration should be protected, behavior that causes social disorder and unrest should be restrained according to the law,” Jiang said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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