The government must warn the public about China attempting to increase its influence by citing a shared culture and ethnicity as part of its “united front” rhetoric, a Taiwanese academic said on Monday.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) claims that Taiwan and China are “culturally one” are embodied by how Fuzhou City has reached out to Lienchiang County (Matsu) and Xiamen City has wooed Kinmen County, said Hung Chin-fu (洪敬富), a professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University.
Taipei must be alert to China’s use of culture and ethnicity to get more Taiwanese to sign up for a Chinese ID card, Hung said.
Photo: Screen grab from Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming’s Facebook page
A government official speaking on condition of anonymity said separately that they hoped the Republic of China still had a place in the hearts of Taiwanese officials attending Chinese-hosted Lunar New Year events.
The remarks came on the heels of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leading a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in China’s Fujian Province over the weekend.
The unnamed official said that Wang attends the event every Lunar New Year and last year even helped promote a Fujian-Matsu card for travel between the Chinese city and the Taiwanese county, citing their proximity as a reason for the promotion.
The Fuzhou Daily reported that the festival’s central theme extolled unification and celebrated UNESCO in December last year adding China’s Spring Festival customs to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Mawei festival is held in communities among those represented in the UNESCO listing, giving the event more significance, the newspaper reported.
Wang on Sunday wrote on Facebook that he, Lienchiang County Council Speaker Chang Yung-chiang (張永江), county councilors Tsao Er-chang (曹爾章) and Chen Yu-fa (陳玉發), and four other local officials attended the event.
“Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” with the joy stemming from both sides “being of one people,” Wang wrote.
Wang thanked CCP officials and urged both sides “not to cast aside our five millennia of history for five decades of politics.”
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS