■ Cross-strait
Taiwanese elected in China
A Taiwanese businessman has been chosen to sit on a district people's congress in Ningbo city, becoming the first person from Taiwan to serve as a lawmaker in China, an official said yesterday. Zeng Yushu was elected Friday to the legislature of Jinzhou district, said a local Communist Party official by telephone. "He is the first Taiwanese businessman in China elected as a representative of the people's congress," said the official. Zeng's company employs more than 500 workers and had sales this year of US$30 million, the official China News Service said. The report said Zeng was nominated by 10 people, including one of his workers, and later won more than half the total votes cast. Candidates for legislatures, including lower level bodies, are usually selected by the Communist Party.
■ Society
Ghost wedding links couple
A man who died of complications after having a tooth pulled and his girlfriend who committed suicide from grief were married in a traditional "ghost wedding," it was reported yesterday. Some 30 family members attended the wedding ceremony of Chen Yen-jen, 26, and Chiang Chia-ling, 21, held at the city mortuary in Keelung on Sunday, a Chinese-language newspaper said. Chen's brother and Chiang's sister tied the knot on behalf of the dead, holding photographs of the deceased. Chen died of meningitis on Oct. 25 after he had a tooth removed a month earlier, the paper said. His girlfriend killed herself Nov. 3, the day of his funeral by burning charcol in her college dorm room. She left a note asking to be married to Chen after her death and for them both to be buried together.
■ Government
Chen emphasizes security
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) told a US delegation that the Taiwan government has to consider national security a higher priority than economic interests when considering direct links between the two sides of the Strait. "The direct links issue can cut both ways, but what the majority of the people in Taiwan are concerned about is whether national security can be safeguarded once the links are sanctioned, and therefore, we must proceed with caution," Chen told guests.
■ Education
Policy set to limit new words
To address the mounting concerns over the nation's nine-year compulsory educational program Minister of Education Huang Jung-tsun (黃榮村) promised to implement new policies within a month in a legislative interpellation last week. One of the key changes will be to restrict to 1,000 the number of the English words and phrases taught at primary schools. The policy is aimed at lightening students' work load and safeguarding the education rights of disadvantaged students who cannot afford to attend cram schools.
■ Crime
Lin on Most Wanted list
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday put Justin Lin (林毅夫), who defected to China in 1979, on its Most Wanted list. The Control Yuan also confirmed yesterday that Lin had taken confidential military information with him during his escape. Lin's family also said yesterday that it will not return the NT$475,000 in compensation it received from the military in 1979 after Lin was listed as missing. Lin is now a well-known scholar at Beijing University and an adviser to Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基). Despite being granted permission to return to Taiwan to attend his father's funeral in June, he decided not to do so.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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