Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Wan-ju (余宛如), part of a delegation of Taiwanese lawmakers visiting the US, yesterday thanked her US counterparts for supporting Taiwan.
“Many thanks to those US lawmakers who have said that they will not allow Taiwan to become a pawn in US-China relations and that they will take Taiwan’s interests into account when dealing with trade or national security pacts,” she said on Facebook, adding that such remarks “will give Taiwan confidence.”
The delegation, which arrived in the US on Monday and is to return today, also includes Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲), Lin Li-chan (林麗蟬) and Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), as well as DPP legislators Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) and Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲).
Yu said was is a good time to visit the US, following the enactment of the Taiwan Travel Act by the US Congress and the completion of the new American Institute in Taiwan compound in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖).
The delegation visited pro-Taiwan US lawmakers, including Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy, and Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as other government officials.
US lawmakers who share the same values and ideals as Taiwan have become long-term friends, proposed important bills to support Taiwan and spoken up for Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, despite the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump, Yu said.
“They are fully aware of all the issues related to Taiwan and support Taiwan. They are strong allies and partners,” she said.
The delegation voiced concern about the ongoing trade war between the US and China, as well as US tariffs on Taiwanese aluminum makers, to US lawmakers and government officials, she added.
Most US lawmakers support free trade and are willing to invite Taiwan to participate in regional trade integration efforts, Lin Li-chan wrote on Facebook.
However, under Trump’s conservative economic policy, “we and they still have a lot to do,” she 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
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