Tainan mayor-elect Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said he would consider visiting China to promote tourism to Tainan if the opportunity arises.
The Democratic Progressive Party member said he would not seek to make statements or engage in provocations or confrontations, but simply focus on tourism.
There is no need for China to exclude Tainan in its exchanges with Taiwan, Huang said in a recent interview with the Central News Agency that covered the slower pace of cross-strait exchanges since President Tsai ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 2016.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
Tainan would welcome investments by China-based Taiwanese businesses if they do not intend to harm the environment, exploit workers or focus only on profits, he said.
It would also be more than willing to collaborate with other cities and counties, regardless of their political leadership, to find ways of boosting the nation’s economy, he said.
Huang beat Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Kao Su-po (高思博) by less than 6 percentage points in the Nov. 24 elections.
“There are no excuses for the failure,” Huang said about the DPP’s losses in the elections.
The party’s losses were due to the central government’s lackluster handling of internal affairs and economic issues, he said.
Among his priorities would be transportation, in particular the construction of more railway lines, and better flood control systems, he said.
He said he would seek to ensure an adequate supply of water and electricity to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s plants in the Southern Taiwan Science Park.
Huang also said he would freeze property taxes after taking office and would consider lowering them over the next three years.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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