The New Power Party (NPP) on Friday rebutted claims it would be involved in upcoming elections in Hong Kong, as it defended Taiwan’s democracy against criticism from the Hong Kong government.
The party made the remarks after a media report said that members of the NPP would fly to Hong Kong and take the stage at a campaign event to support a specific candidate in the territory’s Sept. 4 Legislative Council elections.
“There is no truth in such claims — none of the five NPP legislators have such plans,” the NPP said in a statement. “The party cares deeply about the development of democracy in Hong Kong. We support an election that is truly representative of Hong Kongers. We are happy to see Hong Kongers participating in this election. With regard to the support of individual government parties, we have never said a word.”
A Hong Kong government spokesperson on Friday said the administration is not in favor of Taiwanese independence supporters visiting Hong Kong, or publicly backing any Hong Kong government organizations.
In response, NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said: “A government that shows itself to be the lackeys of the Chinese Communist Party in everything it does cannot stand together with Hong Kongers. Although I had no plans to travel to Hong Kong, seeing a statement such as this fills me with sadness.”
While responding to inquiries by Hong Kong online media outlet Standnews, NPP Secretary-General Chen Hui-min (陳惠敏) said the Hong Kong authority must heed calls by its people to strive wholeheartedly for democratic freedom, calling such a right Hong Kong’s most valuable asset.
“When all is said and done, does the Hong Kong government want to build a wall to keep people out, or does it want to continue to foster relationships with various democratic societies, maintaining the advantageous position it has long had? This is what the Hong Kong government needs to think about,” she said.
Chen reiterated the NPP’s stance, saying “its position is that Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation, whose interactions with China are characterized by unfair state-to-state relations. This party seeks the ‘normalization’ of Taiwan as a nation. Whether Taiwan is independent is for the people of Taiwan to decide. It is not the decision of Beijing or the Hong Kong government.”
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