Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) is in China for meetings with the Taiwanese community, the party said on Thursday.
The trip by the former Mainland Affairs Council head comes as his party seeks to narrow the Democratic Progressive Party’s lead ahead of the Jan. 13 presidential and legislative elections.
Hsia, who arrived on Wednesday, is visiting Chengdu, Nanchang, Zhongshan, Xiamen and Chongqing at the invitation of the Taiwanese business community in China, and is to attend events with them, the party said in a statement.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Hsia's visit had been planned since October, and is mainly aimed at "continuing the achievements and goals" of previous trips, it added.
"Under the highly tense relationship between the US and the Beijing authorities, the leaders of the two sides still need to maintain channels of communication," the KMT said.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two sources briefed on the trip, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, told Reuters that Hsia was likely to meet TAO officials.
The KMT said it was untrue that Hsia would meet with "senior" TAO officials.
Hsia has been to China four times in the past year and a half, including a controversial visit in August last year shortly after China staged war games around the island in response to a Taipei visit by then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In February, June and August, Hsia met TAO Director Song Tao (宋濤).
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS