The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment.
The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the CCP might have cherry-picked them, Shen said.
Photo: CNA
However, absent any changes to legislation, the council would ensure that their itineraries and applications after arrival in Taiwan are approved if they meet the current standards, the MAC said.
Forty Chinese students and teachers from seven universities, including Chinese Olympic gold medalists Ma Long (馬龍) and Yang Qian (楊倩), invited by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, yesterday arrived in Taiwan.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) citing an official with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that all of the members of the group were members of the Communist Youth League of China, CCP reserve cadres, or, in the case of Ma Long, standing members of the CCP.
The mission of the delegation is to spread Chinese propaganda for the CCP government, the source said.
Asked for comment, Ma
Long said he hoped to travel around Taiwan and experience its gastronomic delights.
When asked if he had been in contact with Taiwanese table tennis player Lin Yun-ju (林昀儒) and whether a friendly match would be scheduled, Ma said he had not reached out and that the possibility of a match would depend on his itinerary.
Yang said she also wished to tour the country.
The Chinese delegation visiting during the nadir of cross-strait relations showed that regardless of how frigid the relationship could become, sports and youth interactions would always remain something in common across the Strait, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday.
The foundation has been working hard to promote youth interactions, as such activities would build the foundation of a future involving both sides and prevent cross-strait conflict, Hsiao said.
The foundation would arrange a baseball event, hoping Ma Long and Yang would participate and help spread Taiwan’s baseball culture to China, Hsiao added.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS