Pan-green camp lawmakers on Sunday accused a cross-strait baseball tournament of being part of China’s “united front” strategy after a banner that read “both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait are one family” was hung on the field at the opening game of the finals of the first Cross-Strait Student Baseball League tournament hosted in Shenzhen on Friday.
Although the baseball tournament ended on Sunday, the Taiwanese teams were scheduled to visit Tencent Holdings Ltd, Dajiang Innovation Technology Co, Shenzhen Talent Park, Shenzhen Bay Sports Center and other places yesterday and today, the Web site of the Shenzhen People’s Government said, adding that the host organization also arranged a photography exhibition, welcoming party, forum, cross-strait school exchange and other activities.
New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said that the baseball association should bear the brunt of the blame for letting Taiwanese players become political tools in China’s “united front” strategy and for giving Chinese media an opportunity to promote the “both sides of the Strait are one family” view without restraint.
China is not a top-tier nation in baseball and positive effects on Taiwanese baseball from the tournament would be limited, Hsu said.
The Chinese Taipei Baseball Association should not go along with China, he said, adding that the Sports Administration should investigate whether the association accepted financial aid and whether it reported issues to the government in advance.
“The government should clearly standardize the guidelines for cross-strait sports exchanges,” Hsu added.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said the tournament was a fake exchange as part of China’s “united front” strategy.
Lin echoed Hsu’s criticism of the association, saying that it is incapable of maintaining the basic dignity of Taiwanese.
After Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) was sentenced to five years in prison, “who would still want to be ‘one family’ with China?” Lin asked.
The tournament is considered a cross-strait technical exchange, Chinese Taipei Baseball Association secretary-general Kung Fu-hao said, adding that it aims to mutually improve skills and does not involve politics.
Taiwan and China held an exchange tournament eight years ago, Kung said.
Because the two sides speak the same language and Taiwan is more skilled in baseball, China hopes to use this tournament to improve, he said.
Because the US and Japan are more skilled, Taiwan often competes against the two nations to identify its weaknesses, Kung said, adding that the cross-strait tournament had a similar starting point.
According to Chinese media, the event was attended by 785 athletes, referees and government officials.
Apart from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and Taitung County Commissioner Justin Huang (黃健庭) of the KMT also attended the opening ceremony, the reports said.
Zhang was quoted as saying that he hopes the tournament can be organized every year.
The 16 participating Taiwanese schools — consisting of colleges, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools — included Chung Yuan Christian University, Shih Hsin University, National Taiwan University and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.
Chinese media reported that the tournament was organized by the Cross-Straits Baseball Exchange and Cooperation Committee, which was coestablished by the Federation of University Sports of Beijing Baseball and Softball Branch and the “Chinese Taipei Baseball Association” (中華台北棒球協會).
The “Chinese Taipei Baseball Association” was also a cosponsor in name, Chinese media reports added.
Hsu added that the name Chinese media used to refer to Taiwan’s baseball association was not its official Chinese name, which literally reads “Baseball Association of the Republic of China” (中華民國棒球協會).
Kung said that the tournament followed the Olympic model.
Additional reporting by Lo Chih-ming
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