A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation to China has achieved the three main goals of the trip and would expect more such exchanges, KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said yesterday in Shanghai.
The three main purposes of the trip were to look after the needs of Taiwanese based in China, convey the problems Chinese regulations have caused small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan, and get to know the new Chinese officials in charge of Taiwan affairs, the KMT said.
The delegation left Taiwan for a multi-city tour of China on Wednesday last week.
Photo: CNA
Hsia has met with Chinese Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning (王滬寧); Sung Tao (宋濤), the head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office; and Yin Li (尹力), the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Beijing.
The delegation also visited Nanjing.
Yesterday morning, Hsia attended an event in Shanghai focused on young entrepreneurs from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and met with young Taiwanese entrepreneurs operating there.
The event was held online via a live videoconference.
Speaking at the virtual event, Hsia said there were many factors that have hurt cross-strait economic and trade cooperation over the past few years and posed challenges to cross-strait exchanges.
Due to a lack of mutual trust between Taiwan and China, official cross-strait communications have been suspended, and the implementation of the 23 official agreements between the two sides has been affected, he said.
Unable to get help through official channels, many Taiwanese businesspeople have begun to find possible solutions on their own, or sought the KMT’s help, Hsia said.
Hsia said he believed that Taiwanese in China need to take greater responsibility in dealing with the problems facing them.
With the three main goals being met in the first six days of the trip, Hsia said he would continue to meet with Taiwanese businesspeople in other Chinese cities to learn of their difficulties and ask the Chinese authorities to properly respond to their problems.
Hsia said China has always hoped to promote exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and that the talks his delegation has had with the Chinese side indicates there would be more exchanges to come.
“Both sides have a better understanding of each other, which is a good direction for the peaceful development of the two sides of the Strait,” he said.
Hsia is scheduled to make stops in Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu during his trip, which is to end on Friday, the KMT said.
Responding to Hsia’s comments, the Mainland Affairs Council said that cross-strait exchanges must be conducted on the basis mutual respect, but the political prerequisites set by Beijing cannot guarantee Taiwan’s interests.
Taiwan is open to visits by Chinese officials who want to understand the diversity of public opinion, as long as it is done under the auspices of “peace, equality, democracy and dialogue,” it added.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the