Hsia Yu-shun (夏玉順), a former agent of Taiwanese pop star Liu Wen Zheng (劉正文), yesterday walked back on his statement that the celebrity had died, saying that his false confirmation of Liu’s passing came out of a desire to protect the singer’s privacy.
Hsia on Wednesday said that Liu had died in November last year at the age of 70.
However, Hsia yesterday said he made the false announcement to help protect Liu from people hoping that he would make a return and launch a tour.
Photo: CNA
He said some people have offered up to NT$2 billion (US$66.05 million) for Liu to hold a 50-concert tour in China, Hsia said.
“However, Liu is not interested. He retired in his prime and certainly wouldn’t wait until he was 70 if he wanted to hold concerts,” Hsia said, adding that he just wanted Liu to have some peace and quiet.
Rumors have often circulated, mainly in China, about Liu’s passing, so “I thought it was a good idea, and that he [Liu] wouldn’t be harassed if he were ‘dead,’” Hsia said.
Hsia said he contacted Liu after making Wednesday’s statement and that he was initially amused at the prospect, saying that this way, no one would harass him about concerts.
However, upon further thought, Liu said it was not a good idea, as “he wanted his fans to know that he was still alive, so I had to take the announcement back,” Hsia said.
He said Liu has suffered a myocardial infarction, but was resuscitated and is healthy.
Liu would not be making a comeback on the big stage, Hsia said, adding that his fans should keep Liu in their hearts.
Liu rose to fame in 1975 with the release of his first album The Promise (諾言) and a starring role in the romantic film The Story of Four Girls (門裡門外), released in Taiwan and Hong Kong. He won his third Golden Bell Award for Best Male Singer in 1983.
After a brief retirement in 1984, he returned to Taiwan and founded the Feiying Record Production Co, which was instrumental in bringing to fame the best talent in the nation’s music industry of that era, including Fang Wen-lin (方文琳), Annie Yi (伊能靜) and Donna Chiu (裘海正).
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods