Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) is to make his first visit to China today to attend the opening ceremony of an art exhibition, a plan welcomed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), whose China policy has been closely watched.
Lai announced the itinerary for his two-day visit at the Greater Tainan City Council yesterday afternoon after the conclusion of a general question-and-answer session.
“Tomorrow [Friday], I will fly to Shanghai along with Greater Tainan Art Museum Preparatory Committee convener Chen Hui-tung (陳輝東), former National Palace Museum director Lin Man-li (林曼麗), National Cheng Kung University history professor Hsiao Chong-ray (蕭瓊瑞) and several city government officials to preside over the opening ceremony of an exhibition of paintings by late Taiwanese artist Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波),” Lai said.
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
Chen Cheng-po was born in 1895 in then-Tainan Prefecture and despite having a relatively short life, he had left his artistic footprints all over Tokyo, Shanghai and Taiwan, Lai said, which showed that culture could spread beyond national boundaries and politics.
The Greater Tainan Government’s Department of Information and International Relations Director Chao Ching-hui (趙卿惠) said the Shanghai exhibition is the third leg of an East Asian tour of the exhibition.
“After its first leg in [Greater] Tainan [between January and March], the exhibition was staged in Bejing, China, in April. However, as the second leg coincided with a general questions-and-answer session, [Lai] decided to attend it in Shanghai instead,” Chao said.
In addition to presiding over the ceremony, Lai also plans to visit Shanghai-based Fudan University and attend a seminar on promoting medical tourism, Chao said.
Chao added that the sole purpose of Lai’s visit is to facilitate [cross-strait] cultural exchanges and that the mayor has no plans to meet any particular person.
Commenting on the matter, Tsai said she was optimistic about Lai’s visit and hoped the mayor could help increase mutual understanding across the Taiwan Strait and promote cross-strait exchanges.
DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said there has been a consensus within the party to facilitate cross-strait exchanges and that Lai’s visit carries particular significance given that Chen Cheng-po was one of the victims of the 228 Massacre.
Chen Cheng-po was shot to death by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops in front of Chiayi Railway Station on March 25, 1947, about a month after the then-KMT regime began its brutal crackdown on Taiwanese protesting against its authoritarian rule.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS