The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is happy to see mayors and county heads become involved in exchanges with their Chinese counterparts, DPP spokesman Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said yesterday.
Cheng made the comment when asked about Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) attending the annual Taipei-Shanghai forum.
Cheng said the DPP was happy to see Ko and three DPP city councilors attend the Shanghai forum and exchange ideas with their Chinese counterparts.
Asked about the content and format of the visit, Cheng said the visit was being made by the Taipei City Government and the DPP would not comment on specific aspects of the trip.
The DPP has been a vocal critic of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) efforts to bring Taiwan and China closer together and has rejected the so-called “1992 consensus” advocated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government as a framework to guide relations with Beijing.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and Beijing that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Because of the DPP’s stance on cross-strait relations, it is thought to be viewed with suspicion by Beijing.
Asked if China might restrict or stop DPP city and county heads from visiting China, Cheng said he has received no indication of such an intention.
He said that the DPP’s Central Standing Committee has reported that the 13 cities or counties headed by DPP officials would set up cross-strait units to promote exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and the party would respect the approaches they take in communicating with Chinese authorities.
Cross-strait relations have taken center stage at the Taipei-Shanghai Forum.
During a meeting with Ko on Monday, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (楊雄) mentioned the “1992 consensus.”
Ko made no specific response, and Taipei City Government spokesman Sydney Lin (林鶴明) later said that Ko’s thoughts on cross-strait relations remain the same.
Ko has previously said that he would respect agreements signed between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and would base ties on the principles of mutual understanding, respect and cooperation.
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