Taiwan Statebuilding Party Taipei city councilor candidate Wu Hsin-tai (吳欣岱) yesterday accused Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and his Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) of encouraging Taiwanese to ignore the Chinese threat.
Drawing on her background as a heart surgeon, Wu told an outdoor news conference in Neihu District (內湖) that refusing to face up to the threat posed by China is like a sick person denying their condition and seeking alternative treatments until it becomes worse.
The most detestable response to the Chinese threat is urging Taiwanese to ignore it, just like the “political quack” Ko and his TPP do, she said.
Photo: CNA
Wu’s news conference came ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress set to begin on Sunday, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expected to secure an unprecedented third term.
The Taiwan Statebuilding Party held a similar news conference last week at Kaohsiung’s Sanduo roundabout and unveiled a billboard at the intersection of Minquan and Ruiguang roads in Taipei to raise awareness about the threat.
The next five years are to be treacherous for Taiwan, as Xi sets his sights on “recovering Taiwan” to achieve his goal of “national rejuvenation,” Taiwan Statebuilding Party secretary-general Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said.
The party has since August been holding events to warn Taiwanese that the “wolf is really coming,” Wang said.
If Xi “ascends the throne” as expected, many international experts believe 2027 would be the most dangerous year in the Taiwan Strait, Wu said.
Some Taiwanese advocate for reopening channels of communication with Beijing, while others support bolstering national defense, Wu said.
However, the most detestable thing is encouraging inaction, leaving only a sense of generalized anxiety, she said.
Wu said she has seen many patients deny their condition in a way similar to Ko’s supporters applauding his refusal to sign a pledge to never surrender to China.
In a democracy, every person contributes to the nation’s direction, Wu said, urging Taiwanese to realize that public sentiment would affect China’s plans.
“Only if everyone defends their home will the wolf next door drop his greedy delusions,” she 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