The Mainland Affairs Council on Friday asked China to honor its pledge that it would not meddle in Taiwanese elections.
The council made the remarks following accusations by the Taiwan Radical Wings party that three Chinese airlines have been providing flight tickets to Taiwan for less than one-third of normal prices for travel in the 14 days leading up to the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections.
The party called on the government to draw up countermeasures to prevent China from meddling in the elections by coercing China-based Taiwanese to travel home and vote for candidates favored by Beijing.
The council said that the government welcomes China-based Taiwanese who return to vote, as is their constitutional right.
It would look into Taiwan Radical Wings’ allegations, the council said, adding that it warned China not to interfere with the nation’s elections in any way.
Separately, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said it welcomed help offered by a Taiwanese business association based in China to secure flight discounts for Taiwanese to return to vote in the elections.
Foundation Deputy Secretary-General Kuan An-lu (管安露) on Friday said it looked forward to Taiwanese businesspeople in China returning home to exercise their right to vote.
Discounted fares have typically been available in the run-up to elections to boost turnout among Taiwanese living in China, Kuan said, whose semi-official agency is responsible for handling contact with China in the absence of official ties.
However, Taiwanese students in China are not expected to return home in large numbers, as the vote is in the middle of the school year, Kuan said.
There were no signs of Taiwanese business groups in China organizing charter flights for the elections, she said.
Shanghai Association of Taiwan vice president Hu Hsing-chung (胡興中) said that the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland has reached an agreement with several airlines on either side of the Taiwan Strait to provide fare discounts.
The discounts are to be disclosed soon, the association said.
The nine-in-one elections are to choose mayors and councilors in the six special municipalities and other cities, Aboriginal district representatives and councilors, county commissioners and councilors, township mayors and councilors, and borough and village wardens.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS