The government has granted a “special student visa” to Li Jiabao (李家寶), a Chinese student who is seeking political asylum, allowing him to stay in the country for another six months to “advance his knowledge.”
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced the decision in a press release yesterday, when Li’s current student visa was due to expire.
“Li has expressed several times his hope of remaining in Taiwan for further studies,” the statement said. “The government has considered his wishes and decided to grant him the necessary assistance before his current study period ends.”
Li, an exchange student at Tainan’s Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, is seeking political asylum and applied in April for long-term residency in Taiwan.
He said at the time that he feared the comments he made in a livestream video in March, criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for removing presidential term limits in China, could result in him being charged with “inciting subversion of state power” if he returned to China.
The Chinese government should respect the “free will” of young Chinese students, the council said.
It should view Li’s comments and actions in Taiwan in a “civilized and rational” way, rather than resorting to suppression or any other adverse tactics against him or his family there, it added.
“Taiwan is a free and democratic society, where diverse opinions and views are respected and tolerated,” it said. “The two sides of the Taiwan Strait might have their differences, but the maintenance of cross-strait peace and stability requires mutual understanding and joint efforts.”
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:
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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