In an apparent reversal of its previous position, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration said on two occasions that Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is welcome to visit the nation.
The Mainland Affairs Council said at a regular press conference on Thursday that when conditions are right, the Dalai Lama is welcome to apply to visit Taiwan through established channels.
The Dalai Lama has visited Taiwan on three occasions, including in 1997 during the term of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and again in 2001 under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), when he was treated as a visiting head of state. During his 2001 visit, the Dalai Lama met Ma, then mayor of Taipei, who said at the time that Taipei would always welcome the Dalai Lama.
However, after Ma became president in 2008, his stance on visits by the Dalai Lama cooled considerably.
Ma reluctantly agreed to a visit in 2009, during which the spiritual leader performed religious rituals for victims of Typhoon Morakot, but insisted that the visit was purely for religious purposes and refused to meet with with the Dalai Lama in person.
However, since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) reiterated China’s advocacy of the “one country, two systems” policy in September, the tone of cross-straits relations has shifted.
In his Double Ten National Day address, Ma urged China to move toward liberal democracy and support true universal suffrage for Hong Kong, sparking criticism from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
The Mainland Affairs Council’s announcement on Thursday solidifies the administration’s endorsement of comments earlier this week by Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission Minister Jaclyn Tsai (蔡玉玲).
At a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee, she said the Dalai Lama would be welcome to visit the nation when the conditions were right, adding that the Dalai Lama is an important spiritual leader with a broad following in Taiwan.
She said that the Dalai Lama has already held many meetings with “mainland” representatives to resolve the Tibetan problem.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
RSS