The administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) exchanged Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity for an invitation to the World Health Assembly (WHA), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said yesterday, adding that his was far inferior to the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Earlier yesterday, Ma wrote on Facebook that Tsai should consider relaunching cross-strait negotiations, as mutual trust across the Tawain Strait had been the key to his administration being invited to the WHA every year.
Ma’s participation in international affairs is akin to “gouging out your eyes to cure myopia,” Wang said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
“If we cannot uphold our claims to sovereignty, who would we represent, even if we were to participate in international organizations?” he asked.
Taiwan’s recent interactions with the international community are unprecedented and its visibility on the international stage has grown, he said.
It is a difficult path to insist that Taiwan’s participation in the international community be done without demeaning the nation and being forced to defend its sovereignty, but it is the right path, Wang said.
Taiwanese know whether Ma’s form of international participation — currying favor with China while fearing to defend national sovereignty — was good or bad.
During his eight years of governance, Taiwan’s economy declined and national defense capabilities shrank, Wang said, adding that Ma is Taiwan’s least-liked president.
Wang said that Ma should compare the two administrations in terms of stock market performance and paying national debt.
The Ma administration would lag in every department, he said.
DPP Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) cited a 2011 incident in which WikiLeaks uncovered American Institute in Taiwan documents showing that China and the WHO in 2005 signed a secret memorandum of understanding that said Taiwan would be referred to as “Taiwan, China.”
Former WHO director-general Margaret Chan’s (陳馮富珍) office in September 2010 issued an internal memo to all member states listing Taiwan as a province of China, Hsu said.
Taiwan’s participation in the WHA as a “province of China” is not what Taiwanese want, he said.
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