Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday told Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (楊雄) that he hoped increased participation in this year’s Taipei-Shanghai forum would help both sides of the Taiwan Strait boost interactions, goodwill and mutual trust.
Ko, who arrived in Shanghai earlier yesterday for the Taipei-Shanghai City Forum, made the remarks during his meeting with Yang, where the two exchanged pleasantries and souvenirs.
The nearly 100 businesspeople in the 130-strong Taipei delegation are scheduled to exchange opinions about culture, smart city infrastructure, youth entrepreneurship and healthcare systems within communities with their Chinese counterparts today at the Ruijin Hotel Shanghai, the forum’s venue.
Photo: CNA
Yang touted Shanghai and Taipei as the first two cities to have carried out exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, including the annual forum, which he said has led to remarkable outcomes. In return, Ko expressed his gratitude to the Shanghai City Government for hosting the event.
Ko presented Yang with a souvenir, a painting by Taipei Municipal Bailing Senior High School student Hsu En-chi (許恩綺), which features a white pigeon and a Qin Dynasty terra-cotta soldier, juxtaposing the concepts of peace and war.
In return, Yang presented Ko with a painted ceramic dish.
Yang referred to Ko as “Mayor Ko of Taipei,” avoiding a concern among local media outlets that China would try to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty by addressing Ko in an inappropriate manner.
In response to reporters’ questions prior to his departure, Ko said he would seek to establish mutual trust across the Taiwan Strait.
“Without mutual trust, both sides are always on guard against each other. This slows things down, resulting in low efficiency,” he said.
Ko also brushed aside criticism by Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) of the Democratic Progressive Party, who said that members of the delegation were “Ko Dynasty nouveaux riches,” using Universal Eye Center president Lin Pi-jung (林丕容) as an example.
In response, Ko said that Lin was his sole appointment to the delegation.
On Sunday evening, Wang told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that Ko was apparently taking Lin, his National Taiwan University classmate, on the trip so that Lin could “establish business ties” in China, similar to methods employed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
He lambasted Ko’s move, saying that private-sector delegates selected by the Taipei City Government are “parvenus” of the “Ko Dynasty.”
Ko said that, with the exception of Lin, who also doubles as the chairman of online shopping outlet books.com.tw, all delegates were appointed by the conveners of four sub-forums scheduled to open in Shanghai today.
“The only exception is Lin Pi-jung, my college classmate. We are quite close. Considering that he has a business in Shanghai and that he knows his way around, I specifically put him on the delegation,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS