The government needs to have an understanding of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) meetings with Chinese officials before deciding whether to take action against him, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said yesterday.
Han’s meetings have drawn criticism at home and abroad, but the Ministry of the Interior and the council need to know whether the visits were political in nature before deciding whether he should be reprimanded, Chen told reporters at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
The ministry has established an ad hoc committee to look into the visits, and it hopes that Han would cooperate with the committee by clarifying the nature of his talks with Chinese officials, he added.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Han’s visits to Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen and Xiamen over the past five days were orchestrated by Beijing to convince him that China’s “one country, two systems” framework is successful, Chen said.
Commenting on draft legislation proposed by the council to limit visits to Hong Kong and Macau by commissioners and mayors, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said that it appeared to be aimed specifically at Han, adding that it would not conform with the nation’s style of enacting legislation.
Chen denied that Han was the sole motivation for proposing the draft legislation, saying that it was also intended as a response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) call in a speech on Jan. 2 for Taiwan to be united with China under the “one country, two systems” framework.
Legislative proposals are responses to long-term and short-term issues, and Han was merely a short-term concern, he added.
The government is mulling a Hong Kong and Macau version of 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), Chen said.
He also rejected a rumor that Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) had informed him ahead of time about Han’s plan to visit China’s liaison office in Hong Kong.
When he and Yeh met prior to Han’s trip, they only discussed the need for supplemental documentation if Han planned to meet with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一), Chen said.
Han’s visit to the liaison office was a serious breach of protocol that sparked controversy at home and abroad, he said, adding that none of the nation’s mayors or commissioners, past or present, had visited the office before.
Asked about hosting Xing Kuishan (邢魁山), head of the Taiwan affairs department under the Chinese State Council’s Hong Kong office, at a dinner in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空) area after Xing assumed his post, Chen said that his intention at the time was to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Chen shrugged off criticism by the KMT that he is a “Ming Dynasty-era secret police officer.”
“We are very honest and reasonable at the Republic of China Mainland Affairs Council. There is no such dynastic-era nomenclature that applies to us,” he said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai