China’s state-run media yesterday warned president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) against pursuing a pro-independence path and that a formal split from China would be a “dead end.”
Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a landslide victory on Saturday, as Taiwanese voters turned their backs on closer ties with China.
The DPP has traditionally backed independence for Taiwan, but Tsai has moderated its rhetoric, promising to maintain the “status quo” with China.
However, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Taiwan Studies head Zhou Zhihuai (周志懷) wrote in the Chinese-language edition of the Global Times newspaper that if Tsai “parts ways with the mainland, she will go down a dead end.”
Beijing “will not hold unrealistic delusions” about Tsai, Zhou said, adding that whether cross-strait relations take “the road of peace or antagonism, it’s up to Tsai Ing-wen to make the choice.”
Taiwanese support for Tsai and the DPP surged after voters became increasingly uneasy about a rapprochement with China under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Tsai wasted no time in warning China that “suppression” would harm cross-strait ties, in her first comments to international media following her win, saying that “our democratic system, national identity and international space must be respected.”
In the English-language edition of the Global Times, columnist Zhang Hua (張華) — from the same institution as Zhou — accused Tsai of a “hypocritical cover-up for her pro-independence advocacy.”
An editorial in yesterday’s English-language China Daily newspaper insisted that the KMT lost the election due to issues such as rising unemployment and inequality, rather than its Beijing-friendly approach.
However, it added that Tsai’s policy towards China “remains ambiguous.”
“She has a responsibility to keep the peaceful development of cross-strait relations on track,” it said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the