Taipei City Government’s working group on Chinese affairs is to be reorganized and made directly answerable to Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), city officials said yesterday.
The city’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission chairman Chen Ming-shiun (陳銘薰) said that while the working group responsible for coordinating relations between the city and China was formerly subject to his commission, it would now report directly to the mayor.
The working group would meet next week to discuss policies and an action plan for relations with China, Ko said yesterday.
“I am opposed to secret envoys,” Ko said, adding that he hoped for an “open and transparent” dialogue with China.
Chen said the working group had mainly been responsible for organizing cross-strait events.
However, Ko said it would now serve as a “consultant” body to the city government on China policy.
Ko promised that the body would include a diverse array of figures from the pan-blue and pan-green camps, adding that former International Affairs Committee deputy director Jao Ching-yu (饒慶鈺) would head the group.
Taipei City Government spokesman Sydney Lin (林鶴明) said the group’s organization and membership would differ from that seen in former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration, with more details to be announced next week.
Ko’s comments follow a report on Web site Storm Media that group members would include noted cross-strait experts, including former Mainland Affairs Council chairmen Su Chi (蘇起) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chen Min-tong (陳明通) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Ko’s China policy has attracted speculation that he might have a possible cross-strait role as an independent politician through the annual Taipei-Shanghai forum.
While Ko has called for an expansion of the forum to include other cities, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (楊雄) has said the forum can be held only on the foundation of the so-called “1992 consensus.”
Ko has not expressed agreement with the “1992 consensus,” instead saying that cross-strait ties should move forward on their existing foundation.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both Taiwan and China acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means. In 2006, Su said he "formulated" the term “1992 consensus” in 2000 when he was Mainland Affairs Council chairman.
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,
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
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400