Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), when asked to comment on rumors that China is planning to reduce its daily number of tourists to Taiwan, said that he hopes China will not “use business to push politics.”
Ko, who is on his first trip to the US since taking office in 2014, met with Taiwanese expatriates in San Francisco on Saturday and visited an Agape dental mobile clinic.
In response to media requests for comment on a rumor that China plans to cut its tourist numbers to Taiwan, Ko said his government has drafted plans to diversify its tourist base and will seek to attract more visitors from Japan and the 10 ASEAN member states.
Taipei will try to avoid “putting all its eggs in one basket,” Ko said.
Rumors have surfaced over the past few months that China would reduce its tourist numbers to Taiwan to pressure president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) into accepting the so-called “1992 consensus” — which refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party do not recognize the “1992 consensus.”
Mainland Affairs Council Chief Secretary Yang Chia-chun (楊家駿) said on Thursday last week that Sunday would be “a day to watch” in terms of whether China reduces its tourist quota for Taiwan.
Ko flew to San Francisco, a sister city of Taipei, on Tuesday last week to begin a nine-day visit in the US. He is also scheduled to visit Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona — two other sister cities.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift