Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) met with Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), the party said yesterday, after KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) earlier in the day said that no such meetings would take place without first informing the public.
After a KMT think tank event, Chu said that Hsia would not meet with Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) during his visit to China.
Chu was responding to media reports saying that Hsia was rumored to meet with high-level Chinese officials this week.
If Hsia meets with any high-level Chinese officials, the details of those meetings would be made public beforehand, Chu said.
Hsia embarked on a trip to China to meet with Taiwanese businesspeople there on Aug. 10, immediately after Beijing held unprecedented live-fire drills around Taiwan after a visit to the nation by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Hsia’s trip has drawn criticism not only from the Democratic Progressive Party, but also from within the KMT.
Chu said the reports were not accurate, adding that Hsia would say and do what is necessary in China based on the position of the Republic of China and Taiwanese.
Regarding criticism from within his party, Chu defended Hsia’s trip, saying that the easiest thing would have been to cancel the visit given that going to China at this time was bound to be criticized and potentially harm the party.
Hsia is visiting China with the aim of helping address issues facing China-based Taiwanese compatriots, students and businesspeople, and to solve problems encountered by small and medium-sized enterprises, farmers and fishers, Chu said.
He added that he hoped Hsia’s trip would help ease tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
“This is not for the party itself, but for the good of Taiwan,” Chu said.
Later yesterday, at a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting, Chu said that he had met with many visiting delegations from abroad, demonstrating that the KMT is pro-US, friendly to Japan and in harmony with China.
All of those relationships are indispensable, he said.
Chu said he always tells visitors that the KMT pursues a national security policy based on defense and dialogue.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said of the trip that if a communication channel can be established during Hsia’s visit, it would benefit Taiwan in the long run.
“Of course, the KMT will be criticized, but for Taiwan, this criticism should also be endured,” Ma said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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