Taiwanese baker Wu Pao-chun (吳寶春) saying that he adheres to the so-called “1992 consensus” and the idea that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one family” was not the first time that a Taiwanese was coerced into acknowledging the “consensus.”
Wu’s comments on Monday came after his Shanghai bakery, which he jointly launched with Singapore-based Bread Talk, was labeled as a “pro-Taiwan independence” establishment by Chinese.
China has a history of harassing Taiwanese businesses over so-called “political correctness,” which poses risks for Taiwanese seeking to invest there.
Taiwanese bakery and cafe chain 85°C was in August forced to make a statement supporting the “consensus” and referring to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as “leader of the Taiwan government,” following calls for a boycott by Chinese Internet users.
Tsai had that month visited a 85°C store in Los Angeles during a transit stop on her way to Central America and autographed a store mascot.
However, photographs of the visit were interpreted by Chinese Internet users as store personnel giving Tsai a gift, prompting the calls for the boycott.
US-based navigational device maker Garmin, founded by Taiwanese Kao Min-huan (高民環), was in March forced to issue an apology on its Web site for listing Taiwan as a country, saying that it backed Beijing’s “one China” principle and supported Chinese claims for completeness of its territory.
Former Zhangzhou Taiwanese Businessmen Association honorary chairman Lee Jung-fu (李榮福) was removed from the organization after he attended a Lunar New Year event at the Straits Exchange Foundation in February, during which he said he supported the Tsai administration and its policies regarding the M503 flight path.
Beijing on Jan. 4 unilaterally launched the northbound M503 route without prior consultation with Taiwan. The route is only 4.2 nautical miles (7.8km) west of the median line of the Taiwan Strait, posing risks to national security and flight safety in Taiwan.
Kaohsiung-based Hai Pa Wang Group, which is closely affiliated with Tsai’s family, has been inspected and fined by Chinese authorities multiple times since Tsai took office in May 2016.
The company in December that year issued a news release saying that it was not “pan-green” and that it hoped to work toward the promotion of cross-strait economic development.
Cross-strait issues also featured prominently in the 2012 presidential election.
HTC Corp chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) held a news conference on the eve of the presidential vote, saying in Mandarin as well as Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) that it was difficult to imagine cross-strait relations without the “consensus.”
The statement was considered to have tilted the election in favor of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was seeking re-election.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the