President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he sees Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) as a leader who is able to make quick decisions.
Asked about his impressions of the Chinese leader after their meeting and dinner in Singapore on Saturday, Ma told reporters on a flight back to Taiwan that “apparently neither of us is a good drinker.”
The two leaders and half a dozen officials from either side had a closed-door meeting, followed by a dinner in which liquor — kaoliang from Taiwan and maotai from China — as well as rice wine from Matsu were served.
Sitting next to each other at a round table, he and Xi talked about alcoholic drinks, Chinese zodiac signs and special produce from various regions, among other topics, Ma said.
Prior to their meeting, Ma said had learned about Xi only by reading.
Having finally met him, Ma said he found Xi capable of making decisions quickly on some issues, such as the possibility of allowing more Chinese students to come to Taiwan.
During their summit, Ma said he mentioned the hope of many Taiwanese universities that China would allow students to pursue university degrees in Taiwan.
It is difficult to gain a place to study at universities in China, while there are about 20,000 vacant places per year in Taiwan, Ma told Xi.
On hearing this, Xi instructed China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) to deal with the issue, “just like that,” Ma said.
Regarding a bilateral trade-in-goods agreement and the proposed exchange of representative offices, Xi said China would work on those issues as soon as possible, Ma told reporters.
Ma is due to step down in May next year and is likely to be replaced by the Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who has said that she would work to maintain the cross-strait “status quo,” although she does not recognize much of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) “understandings” on cross-strait relations.
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:
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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