Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday arrived in China with a student delegation on an 11-day trip, which he said would deliver a message of friendship and peace.
Unlike his visit to China last year, this time he plans to stop in Beijing, which has sparked speculation that he could meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Reuters has reported that such a meeting is to take place on Monday next week.
Speaking to reporters before boarding his flight at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Ma said that amid current cross-strait tensions, he would try to convey Taiwanese’s love of peace, and voice hope that the two sides can increase exchanges and avoid war.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
“This is a trip of peace and a trip of friendship,” he said.
Having left the presidency eight years ago, and holding no government or political office, “I can only do my best as an individual to promote cross-strait student exchanges, and help reduce enmity and build goodwill between the two sides’ people,” Ma said.
Last week, the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation said that the former president would lead a group of 20 students on a trip to China until Thursday next week.
Photo: Zhao Yan, AFP
The visit is to include meetings with Chinese students, company tours, and trips to sites of historical or cultural significance, it said.
Ma met with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) shortly after arriving in Shenzhen yesterday.
Song relayed a “kind regard to Mr Ma” on Xi’s behalf, while Ma in response said he could feel that between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait “blood is thicker than water.”
Photo courtesy of Ma’s office via CNA
Ma added that peace and stability are needed in cross-strait relations to ensure the well-being of the people on both sides.
The delegation is to spend three days in Guangdong Province, before traveling to Shaanxi Province tomorrow night and Beijing on Sunday, the foundation said.
Ma, who was president from 2008 to 2016, held a historic meeting with Xi in Singapore in 2015, the first gathering of leaders from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Asked last week about the possibility of another such meeting, foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said that Ma hopes there will be an opportunity to “see an old friend,” but would leave the exact arrangements up to the Chinese side, as they are his hosts.
Commenting on Ma’s visit, Kuo Yu-jen (郭育仁), a professor at the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies at National Sun Yat-sen University, said that to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Ma is working right into its “united front” strategy targeting Taiwan.
The Taiwan Statebuilding Party also criticized Ma in a news conference in Taipei yesterday, saying that the former president no longer has the mandate of voters and is now a mouthpiece of the CCP.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS