The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday denied a report that it is planning to ban three types of Chinese visitors, saying that it was still reviewing regulations on visits by Chinese.
The Chinese-language China Times said the council, which is in charge of China policy, plans to block visits by Chinese provincial government officials responsible for Taiwan affairs and academics who have made remarks against the nation, adding that it will also more meticulously review applications to visit the nation by Chinese with political and military backgrounds.
MAC Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said that the report was false and that no Chinese academics had been blocked from visiting Taiwan because they had criticized the nation.
The government is still mulling introducing measures on cross-strait exchanges after Panama on June 13 switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, Chiu said.
The government is to review and adjust measures on cross-strait exchanges as necessary to reflect the development of relations across the Taiwan Strait, he said.
He added that the MAC welcomes normal engagement across the strait, but said Taiwan still has regulations on applications by Chinese to visit the nation to safeguard its interests.
Over the past year, Beijing has allowed fewer Chinese to study in Taiwan and prevented certain Taiwanese officials from visiting China, Chiu said, adding that it is China that is creating barriers in cross-strait exchanges.
He again urged China not to set any precondition for exchanges across the strait.
Following Panama’s defection, the MAC said it is to review the regulations and laws regarding cross-strait ties and would not rule out monitoring cross-strait exchanges more tightly, including tighter screening of applications from certain Chinese visitors.
These include those who have hidden their identities and officials who have violated human rights and who apply to visit the nation to attend “highly political” activities, the MAC 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
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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