Two deputy mayors and one county commissioner are to attend an annual conference on cross-strait affairs held in Beijing from June 15 to 21, despite others having canceled.
The Straits Forum, to be held from Saturday to Friday next week, is to be hosted by Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee Chairman Wang Yang (汪洋).
Wang is expected to speak about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) insistence that Taiwan be unified with China under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework.
Photo: screen grab from the Internet
A report by the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Friday last week said that the mayors of Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, and the commissioners of Kinmen and Yunlin counties, as well as some councilors, had applied for permits to attend the conference.
After the report was published, six of those who had planned to attend canceled their plans citing concerns that Wang would be speaking about the “one country, two systems” formula.
However, despite those cancelations, Taichung Deputy Mayor Bruce Linghu (令狐榮達), Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) and Kinmen County Commissioner Yang Chen-wu (楊鎮浯) were still planning to attend as of yesterday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kinmen County Council Speaker Hung Yun-tien (洪允典), KMT Changhua County Council Speaker Hsieh Tien-lin (謝典霖) and KMT Keelung City Council Speaker Tsai Wang-lien (蔡旺璉) are also expected to attend.
KMT Vice Chairman Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) is expected to lead a KMT delegation to China’s Xiamen, from where it will depart for the conference, an anonymous source said.
The conference is supposed to highlight Beijing’s achievements in the area of cross-strait relations over the past year, and it hopes that each year would be bigger than the last, the source said.
Last year 8,000 Taiwanese attended and this year Beijing is hoping to attract 10,000 Taiwanese to the event, but there are fewer Taiwanese going this year than last year, the source said, adding that Beijing is likely to inflate attendance numbers anyway.
The Web site for the conference lists 67 activities, with two of the activities expected to be hosted by National Taiwan University and Shih Hsin University respectively.
The Mainland Affairs Council said it would investigate and discuss the schools’ participation with the Ministry of Education.
Other activities are scheduled to be hosted by Taiwanese media companies, including the Visual and Audio Production Association (Republic of China), the Confederation of Entertainment Unions, the Taipei Multimedia Production Association, Eastern Broadcasting Co and CtiTV.
Taiwanese media company Want Want China Times Media Group is also scheduled to host several seminars and activities at the conference, the Web site showed.
NEW AGREEMENT: Malaysia approved imports last year after nearly two years of negotiations and inspections to meet quarantine requirements, officials said Up to 3.6 tonnes of pomeloes from Taiwan cleared Malaysian customs on Friday, in the first shipment of Taiwanese pomeloes to Malaysia. Taiwan-grown pomeloes are popular in domestic and overseas markets for their tender and juicy taste, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency said. The fruit is already exported to Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines, it added. The agency began applying for access to the Malaysian market in 2023, compiling data on climate suitability, pests and diseases, and post-harvest handling, while also engaging in nearly two years of negotiations with Malaysian authorities and submitting supplementary
PEAK MONTHS: Data showed that on average 25 to 27 typhoons formed in the Pacific and South China seas annually, with about four forming per month in July and October One of three tropical depressions in the Pacific strengthened into a typhoon yesterday afternoon, while two others are expected to become typhoons by today, Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Lee Ming-hsiang (李名翔) said yesterday. The outer circulation of Tropical Depression No. 20, now Typhoon Mitag, has brought light rain to Hualien, Taitung and areas in the south, Lee said, adding that as of 2pm yesterday, Mitag was moving west-northwest at 16kph, but is not expected to directly affect Taiwan. It was possible that Tropical Depression No. 21 would become a typhoon as soon as last night, he said. It was moving in a
Tigerair Taiwan and China Airlines (CAL) today announced that several international flights were canceled or rescheduled due to Typhoon Ragasa. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) has maintained sea and land warnings for the typhoon. Its storm circle reached the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) on Taiwan's southern tip at 11am today. Tigerair Taiwan said it canceled Monday's IT551/IT552 Taoyuan-Da Nang, IT606/IT607 Taoyuan-Busan and IT602 Taoyuan-Seoul Incheon flights. Tomorrow, cancelations include IT603 Seoul Incheon-Taoyuan, as well as flights between Taoyuan and Sapporo, Osaka, Tokyo Narita, Okinawa, Fukuoka, Saga, Tokyo Haneda, Nagoya, Asahikawa and Jeju. On Wednesday, the IT321/IT322 Kaohsiung-Macau round-trip would also be canceled. CAL announced that today's
Three tropical depressions yesterday intensified into tropical storms, with one likely to affect Taiwan as a typhoon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The three storms, named Mitag, Ragasa and Neoguri, were designated as storms No. 17 to 19 for this year, the CWA said. Projected routes indicate that Ragasa is most likely to affect Taiwan, it said. As of 2am today, Ragasa was 1,370km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. It was moving west-northwest before turning northwest, slowing from 11kph to 6kph, the agency said. A sea warning for Ragasa is unlikely before Sunday afternoon, but its outer rim