Taipei Universiade Organizing Committee spokesman Yang Ching-tang (楊景棠) confirmed that China has registered 110 athletes for individual sports, but Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said they might only be China’s second-string sportspeople.
Amid rising tensions in cross-strait relations and the registration for the Summer Universiade ending tomorrow, doubts had been expressed that China would not send athletes to compete in the games.
On Sunday evening, Yang said that China applied to register 180 people, including 110 athletes, to compete in individual sports, including track-and-field events, fencing, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting and martial arts.
However, the final situation would only be confirmed after registration ends, Yang said.
Yesterday morning, asked whether China’s registration application was made out of respect for him, Ko said: “Mainland China was sure to attend the Universiade, the only difference is the size of their delegation, because it is a great world power and would definitely not be absent from such an important event.”
He said when he visited Shanghai earlier this month, Chinese officials told to him that the Summer Universiade used to be held in June or July, but with the games being held in August this year, it would clash with the dates of the National Games of the People’s Republic of China.
“I am embarrassed to say this, but I am afraid their best athletes would participate in their national games and they would only send their second-string athletes [to the Universiade],” Ko said.
Meanwhile, during an interview streamed live at noon yesterday, Ko was asked whether President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would attend the Universiade opening ceremony.
He said he discussed the issue with a few Chinese officials and the International University Sports Federation and told them that Tsai must attend as the “president.”
China might not register for team competitions to express its dissatisfaction with the state of relations, he said.
“I feel like in the past year, under Tsai’s administration, both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been raising demands and challenging each other,” Ko said. “Now Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and the Mainland Affairs Council do not even communicate.”
Improving cross-strait relations would not substantially improve Taiwan’s economic situation, but it affects the public’s feeling of stability, he said.
“Taiwan and the Mainland both have their standpoints and persist in them,” he said. “However, why does the Mainland upset Taiwanese? Because it cannot help using its hard power on us.”
He gave examples including an incident involving Taiwanese K-pop singer Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the nation’s exclusion from a World Health Assembly meeting, the detention of human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) and Panama cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Citing a historic war strategy of “ambushing from 10 sides, but leaving one side of the net open,” Ko said China is now squeezing Taiwan’s space in the international community from all sides, leaving no way out.
“Is it our fault that we are getting closer to the US?” Ko said, adding that China should think about why Taiwanese can communicate with Chinese in Mandarin, but seem to be friendlier with the US.
China should see that using hard power on Taiwan does not bring about good results, Ko said, adding that Taiwan should use its soft power to demonstrate to China its more noble values.
“Enforcing ‘united front’ (統戰) tactics is [China’s] obligation, but countering this is our obligation,” he said, adding that democracy, freedom, diversity and openness are valued traits in Taiwanese society.
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