The nation would fight hard against “GTB lunatics,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday in response to a Chinese official’s ridicule of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday criticized Tsai’s inspection of military bases and letter to Pope Francis in response to his message for the 52nd World Day of Peace on Jan. 1.
In the letter, Tsai said that Taiwan would remain resilient due to Beijing’s threat to invade Taiwan by force and continued suppression of its presence in the international community.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Ma ridiculed Tsai for “dressing up” like the cartoon character Popeye and acting like a Chinese opera actress when “complaining to foreigners,” adding that the moves were made to serve the interests of Tsai and her party.
Wu yesterday on Twitter defended Tsai, saying that Taiwan is on the front lines of the fight for freedom and democracy.
“We’ll keep fighting hard against state-level interference, infiltration, disinformation, military threats, international assaults, wumao, GTB lunatics & African swine fever,” he wrote.
The term wumao refers to Internet users who are paid to support the Chinese government’s propaganda, while “GTB” is a romanized acronym for the office, which is pronounced guo tai ban in Mandarin.
The Mainland Affairs Council on Wednesday said that the office’s ridicule and inappropriate remarks only show its rudeness and ignorance of how a democratic society functions.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
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The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
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