A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators left for China yesterday, saying that their trip was aimed at building bridges across the Taiwan Strait by initiating negotiations over cross-strait charter flights.
"Since the government hasn't made any progress in starting negotiations with China, the KMT wants to pressure the government to step up the pace," said Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), leader of the group.
A high-ranking Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official, requesting anonymity, yesterday criticized the KMT trip, saying that it would only serve to destroy the progress the government has made.
The official said that after Premier Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) announcement on Aug. 3 that Taiwan is willing to discuss cross-strait charter flights for passengers and cargo transportation alike, Beijing responded that it welcomed Hsieh's remarks. This development proved that some consensus about this issue had been achieved, he said.
"How can the KMT legislators say that the government hasn't made any progress?" the official said.
It would be immoral of the KMT to destroy any progress through the group's interference or force negotiations to come to a standstill, the official said.
The official urged the KMT legislators to assume the customary role of an opposition party by monitoring government policy, not creating difficulties for the government's efforts to advance the development of cross-strait relations.
As the government has commissioned the Taipei Airlines Association (TAA) -- a private group composed of local airlines -- to be its representative in arranging details of the negotiations, the MAC said that the KMT could exchange opinions with China but should not undermine the government's authority.
Huang Wei-feng (
In related news,the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday granted a request filed by local carriers to fly over China's territorial airspace, urging the Chinese authorities to also give the green light to the request to help the carriers save on fuel costs amid skyrocketing oil prices.
Taiwanese carriers are allowed to file applications to the ministry's Civil Aeronautics Administration starting today, according to an announcement yesterday.
The nation's two largest carriers, China Airlines (華航) and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), were delighted over this measure, saying that they are ready to file their applications.
China Airlines will apply for permission to reroute 44 passenger flights per week over China's airspace -- including flights between Taipei and Hanover, Delhi, Vienna, Frankfurt and Chiang Mai -- and 20 cargo flights per week, including flights between Taipei and Abu Dhabi, Delhi and Luxembourg.
EVA Airways will apply for rerouted flights between Taipei and Paris, Mumbai, Delhi, Hanoi, Vientiane and Dubai.
Additional reporting by staff reporter Jessie Ho
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
RSS