In hopes of helping Taiwanese businessmen come home for the Lunar New Year holiday, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday it would urge the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to arrange direct charter flights between Taiwan and China.
Saying it would work in an intermediary role, the KMT held a press conference yesterday afternoon to highlight the three main points of its appeal to the MAC.
After talking with the family members of Taiwanese businessmen in China and holding a discussion with six major domestic airline carriers last Thursday, the KMT urged the government to be more flexible and allow its three proposals.
The KMT in 2003 helped facilitate semi-direct charter flights during the holidays for Taiwanese businessmen in Shanghai, KMT spokesman Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) said. However, in response to the concerns raised by domestic air carriers and the Taiwanese business community in China, the KMT is hoping to arrange flights to and from Beijing and Guangzhou to Taiwan.
Additionally, the KMT also reported that the airlines it had talked to expressed hopes that they would be allowed to arrange charter flights. Previously, the airlines were only allowed to send empty planes to China to pick up passengers for the trip home. In order to reduce costs, the airlines are hoping to be allowed to book passengers for both the planes making the journeys to and from China, said KMT lawmaker and central policy committee executive director Tseng Yung-chuan (
"In actuality, we already have an existent situation where airline carriers can have two-sided flights which allows Chinese reporters come to Taiwan. Chinese air carriers asked domestic carriers to demand the right to have two-sided flights," said KMT legislative caucus whip Huang Teh-fu (
Furthermore, political considerations prompted flights in 2003 to make stopovers in Macau and Hong Kong. This year, the KMT hopes to arrange genuinely direct charter flights between China and Taiwan.
The KMT has adopted the role of mediator for Taiwanese businessmen abroad and domestic airlines in their negotiation, party officials said. In China, groups representing Taiwanese businessmen are talking with Chinese air carriers and the government.
The ultimate fate of the process lies in the hands of the MAC and in the Chinese government. However, if the Taiwanese government can be more flexible, the KMT believes that direct flights could become a reality, party officials said.
Today's visit will be the second the KMT will make to the MAC. The party's legislative caucus made a similar trip last Thursday to confirm the council's support for the KMT's initiatives. Party officials will also talk with domestic airline representatives later this afternoon.
The six airlines the KMT is building ties with are China Air, Eva Air, TransAsia Airways, Uni Air, Far Eastern Air Transport and Mandarin Airlines.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and