The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) of trying to deceive Taiwanese, saying that a pledge he made on Thursday that China’s political system would not be implemented in Taiwan under the “one country, two systems” formula was a lie.
At an event in Beijing organized by the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland, Liu said that under the “one country, two systems” model, China would not implement its current system in Taiwan, which he said demonstrated Beijing’s “care and concern for Taiwanese compatriots.”
Liu also reiterated a Jan. 2 pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who in a major speech about Taiwan said that the “one country, two systems” model would also ensure that the social system, way of life, personal property, religious beliefs and legal rights of Taiwanese would be fully respected and protected.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
Calling the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) an authoritarian and untrustworthy party without a democratic and civil mind, the council said the “one country, two systems” formula was long ago proven to be a failure and would not prevail in Taiwan.
The council said the reason China needed to propose a framework like “one country, two systems” was because its authoritarian, socialist political system is a rigid and unappealing one to the outside world, and could not integrate with a democratic system.
Given Beijing’s extreme rules that control Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, its manipulation, oppression and lies directed at Taiwan are bound to fail, the council said.
“Democracy and freedom are the core values of Taiwanese society, things Taiwanese will staunchly safeguard. We have seen through the CCP’s deceitful tricks and would never accept the one country, two systems framework, nor take part in a two systems formula,” it said.
The Constitution makes no room for the implementation of the “one country, two systems” model, the council said, adding that the framework is designed to eliminate the Republic of China, as well as the nation’s democratic system.
Most opinion polls have found that more than 80 percent of Taiwanese refuse to accept the “one country, two systems” formula, it said.
“No Taiwanese would play along [with Beijing’s proposal], nor would they ‘ask a tiger for its skin’ (與虎謀皮) by contemplating a proposal that would eradicate their own nation,” it said, using a Chinese idiom.
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
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
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