Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) hope of the cross-strait relationship becoming one of “you and I are deeply in love” (你儂我儂) would not be easily realized.
In an interview published in the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine on Tuesday, Han said that Ko’s use of “two sides of the Strait are one family” to describe the cross-strait relationship is more “emotional,” but he would rather use the term “you and I are deeply in love,” which comes from the soul.
“I will not deny Ko’s rhetoric of ‘two sides of the Strait are one family,’” Han said, adding that he snickers when he hears people speaking highly of the remark, because he thinks “you and I are deeply in love” expresses an even closer relationship, one that means: “I will hold your hand and grow old with you.”
Photo copied by Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Boasting about himself being “very accurate in perceiving the cross-strait relationship,” he said there are “two undeniables” that are colliding with one another: “Do not doubt the Chinese Communist Party’s determination to recover Taiwan,” and “do not doubt Taiwanese’s determination to pursue democracy and freedom.”
“Many people say ‘first be friends, then get married,’ but if you cannot even reach the first stage, it is hard to tell what comes afterward,” Ko said yesterday.
“It is impossible for the current cross-strait relationship to reach a state of ‘you and I are deeply in love’ just because [Han] suddenly brought up the idea. It is not that simple,” Ko said, adding that both sides should first make a friendly gesture, then slowly share more goodwill through communication and exchanges.
“Taiwan is still a society with split ideologies,” he said, adding that he remembers a remark made by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) about “not satisfactory, but acceptable,” and he has realized that it is difficult to achieve even a level of “acceptable” in real politics.
While Han’s remark has stirred heated debate, he yesterday said that “you and I are deeply in love” is only a metaphor.
He said he wanted to stress that cross-strait relations should be approached from a psychological perspective, adding that pioneers of ideas often face criticism.
Presidential Office spokesperson Xavier Chang (張惇涵) yesterday called on Han to focus on municipal administration and carry out his campaign promises as soon as possible, saying that cross-strait affairs are part of the president’s duty, and that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) performance regarding cross-strait and international affairs has been praised internationally.
Additional Reporting by Wang Rong-hsiang
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS