Speaking at a Lunar New Year networking activity for Taiwanese businesspeople working in China that was held at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the development and direction of cross-strait relations are dependent on whether both sides can interact in a beneficial manner, as well as express mutual goodwill.
Tsai said that her inauguration address on May 20, 2016, was “the greatest show of goodwill” and the “strongest guarantee” for stable and peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
“We stand by our promises and maintain our goodwill [toward China]; this is not something we will turn our backs on. Taiwan will take up its responsibility to maintain regional safety and to uphold stable, consistent and predictable cross-strait relations,” Tsai said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait have similar customs, she said, citing the Lunar New Year as an example.
Such similarity in customs and traditions serves to close the psychological distance of people on both sides, she added.
Pointing as an example to the Hualien earthquake on Feb. 6, in which Chinese tourists were among the injured and dead, Tsai said that disaster relief workers and rescuers did not discriminate against Chinese victims.
“There is no distance across the Taiwan Strait when it came to humanitarian relief,” Tsai said.
She pledged government assistance — within its capabilities — for Taiwanese businesspeople who want to increase their investment in China, relocate and invest in Southeastern Asian countries and India, or return to Taiwan.
The government’s efforts since her inauguration have successfully broken the economic stagnation that had been plaguing the nation for many years, with economic growth exceeding expectations for two years in a row, Tsai said.
Last year’s export value was the second-highest in history, and unemployment has reached the lowest in 17 years, Tsai said, adding that the stock market closed at more than 10,000 points before the Lunar New Year holiday for the second time in the nation’s history.
This year is the most crucial for the general growth of the nation’s economy, she said.
Separately, Taiwanese businesspeople voiced their full support of the government’s stance regarding the controversial M503 flight route.
Zhangzhou Taiwanese Businessmen Association honorary chairman Lee Jung-fu (李榮福) said that corporations have a duty to help promote the nation’s policies.
On Jan. 4, China unilaterally launched the northbound M503 route and the W121, W122 and W123 extension routes, a move Taipei protested, as it had not agreed per item 4.2.6 of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Air Traffic Services Planning Manual.
Lee said his company reacted to the M503 incident by shifting Taiwanese employees into three different time slots — Lunar New Year’s Eve, Lunar New Year and the Lantern Festival — to avoid the issue of not having enough flights.
“We must do our best to support any policies made by President Tsai, as she is the president of the Republic of China. [Her actions are] as expected of any democratic nation,” Lee 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:
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