Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) is to conclude his three-week visit to the US to promote his initiative of “constitutions with different interpretations” (憲法各表) and return to Taiwan today, Hsieh’s office said yesterday.
Hsieh, who has focused on cross-strait relations since making a landmark visit to China in October last year, championed promoting bilateral ties through private forums during a visit to the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies on Friday, the office said in a press release.
John Lie, a sociology professor at the institute, proposed that such forums could be organized by neutral institutions and include academics from Japan, South Korea and the US so that a diverse spectrum of views would be heard and Taiwan could avoid the issue of nomenclature in such a multilateral setting, the former premier’s office said.
Hsieh was reportedly mulling organizing a cross-strait forum in Taiwan later this year.
In terms of the competition in “cultural impact” waged between Taiwan and China over US academics, the professor said that most foreign China experts under the age of 45 had studied in China and tended to be more familiar with the authoritative Zhonghua culture (中華文化), but that older experts tended to be more pro-Taiwan, the office said.
Hsieh spoke to the Taiwanese community in Cupertino, California, on Friday evening about his initiative in the last public appearance of his visit, the office said.
Asked about the possibility of him making second trip to Beijing, Hsieh said he has been listening to people’s opinions about his first trip and “there was no timetable as to when the second trip would take place,” his office said.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
RSS