Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday urged the government to request the closure of a Web site that touts Beijing’s 31 measures to attract Taiwanese by citing articles from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
The site, the contents of which are written in traditional Chinese characters, was registered in Taiwan through US Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.
Lawmakers called attention to it after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) met with the National Security Council on Monday, when she outlined seven measures the government would take to deal with China’s “united front” efforts.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
Expressing concern that the Web site could mislead the public, legislators urged the National Communications Commission (NCC) not to be “caught sleeping,” and called on it to press for the site’s closure.
After the Chinese government on Feb. 28 last year announced 31 “incentives” to attract Taiwanese students and professionals, it opened a Facebook page to disseminate information about them.
However, as of yesterday, only 498 people had “liked” the page and 556 people were following it, which had apparently prompted China to try a different approach to spread information about the measures.
In one story appearing in the “important news” section of the Web site, Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference member Zhang Zexi (張澤熙) advises Beijing to make Taiwan’s central and southern regions the focus of agricultural exchanges.
Another story announces reduced taxes and expenses for Taiwanese businesses established in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province.
Both stories also appear on a Chinese mobile app promoting the measures.
In the app, a panda named Rong Rong (融融), which is reportedly to be gifted to Kaohsiung, is described as a “spokesperson” providing information about the Chinese National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference meetings held yesterday.
The Taiwan Network Information Center — which is in charge of domain name registration and IP address allocation in Taiwan — confirmed that the Web site was registered through GoDaddy, and is valid from March 28 last year until March 20 next year.
The center said that while it is responsible for resolving the site’s URL, it has no authority over its registration or content.
China is using Taiwan’s democracy against it, DPP Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said, referring to Beijing registering a Web site with a Taiwanese domain and Taiwanese authorities’ lack of authority to control the site’s content or have it taken down.
The US and Europe have made strides to deal with China’s cyberwarfare efforts, but the NCC appears to be sleeping at the wheel, he said.
DPP Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) also called on the NCC to take action and to press for the site’s closure.
Inaction would only spur China on, and could threaten Taiwan’s freedoms and democracy, he said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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