Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of intending to turn Taiwan into the “Asian version of Cuba,” saying the president’s “misguided economic policies and conflict-prone ideologies” would steer the nation toward a doomed path.
Based on his observations of Tsai and her Cabinet members’ performance over the past 100 days, as well as their handling of new media, Lien said on Facebook that he is gravely concerned that Taiwan could become like Cuba during the Cold War.
“Looking at the past decades in Cuba, the leftist regime has internally stepped up purges against its political rivals and adhered to socialist economic policies, while externally clung to ideologies and embroiled itself in a longstanding wrangling with world power the US,” Lien said.
Due to its conflict with Washington, Havana gradually became isolated and marginalized in the international arena, Lien said, adding that it was the Cuban government’s isolationism and left-wing economic policies that paved the way for poverty and financial woes.
Lien said that while Tsai has defined her administration as a “problem-solver” since taking office in May, it has only created new problems.
“Many of Tsai’s campaign slogans were based on leftist socialism. They might have struck a cord with voters during the election period, but would soon be proven to be utterly infeasible after the president was sworn in,” Lien said.
Lien said the inability to address conflicts between employees and employers, and other ill-devised economic policies, could lead to fiscal overdraft, business exodus and a rising youth unemployment rate.
The worst of all problems facing the Tsai administration is the stalled cross-strait ties, Lien said, adding that it could take a toll on Taiwan’s economy.
“The worst-case scenario is that both sides of the Taiwan Strait become mired in a severe long-term standoff or even some kind of conflict, as it could result in Taiwan being isolated again and descend into a closed and decaying ‘lost paradise,’” Lien said. “If even Cuba has come to the realization that closed-door policies do not work, how much more time is Taiwan going to waste on wrong policies and conflicts induced by ideologies?”
Despite mounting pressure from China, Tsai has only recognized that a cross-strait meeting took place in 1992, rather than recognizing the so-called “1992 consensus,” prompting Beijing to suspend cross-strait communication mechanisms.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, 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.
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