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.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS