The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday issued a news release reiterating the government’s cross-strait policy after former grand justice Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) on Thursday said that Taiwan-China relations are a “special state-to-state” relationship.
Hsu made the remarks during a confirmation hearing at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei for his nomination as Judicial Yuan president.
Hsu said his interpretation is “friendly” to China, similar to the relationship between West and East Germany, and is different from the Republic of China (ROC) that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has envisioned, which claims sovereignty over China and “Outer Mongolia,” which is an independent nation.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
In the news release, the council highlighted that Hsu himself said at the session that the opinions he voiced concerning the cross-strait relationship were solely his own.
“The government will — based on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration speech and the policies and aims she expounded on at the Double Ten National Day ceremony — continue to handle cross-strait affairs and promote peaceful and stable cross-strait development as per the ROC Constitution, the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) and other related legislation,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, on the sidelines of an activity promoting young students’ understanding of cross-strait issues, reporters asked council Minister Katharine Chang (張小月) about a possible meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and whether she thinks it would help improve cross-strait ties.
Chang said that there have always been good mechanisms and channels of communication between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
“There are hotline telephones on both my and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun’s (張志軍) desks,” she said, adding that both sides should return to existing mechanisms for communication and exchanges to promote cross-strait peace and stability, and the welfare of people on both sides.
“As the two sides have different views and stand on different positions on certain issues, negotiation and conversation are even more necessary in order for the problems to be resolved,” Chang said.
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
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
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