President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday once again played up the notion of the nation’s soft power, saying its pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai had helped to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait and prevent war.
“Nobody would want to start a war after visiting the Shanghai World Expo — that’s very clear,” he said, twice mistakenly referring to the World Expo as the Flora Expo before correcting himself. “The exercise of Taiwan’s soft power has definitely had a positive effect on the world.”
The nation’s soft power was the main reason the EU recently decided to grant visa-waiver privileges to Republic of China (ROC) passport holders, Ma said while meeting a delegation of Taiwanese that had just returned from the World Expo.
When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power, ROC passport holders enjoyed visa-free entry to only 53 countries, Ma said. During his presidency, eight more countries and regions had offered visa-waiver treatment before the EU also added Taiwan to its list.
Ma said he expected to see more countries include ROC passport holders in their visa-waiver programs next year and hoped to see the number reach 100 next year when the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ROC is to be celebrated.
Meanwhile, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) dismissed allegations by an Internet user that Ma was selling out Taiwan and asked that he produce proof to substantiate his claims.
Lo, who has just launched his own Facebook page, was responding to a post left on his wall by a man calling himself Henry An (安亨利), in which he accused Ma of selling out Taiwan.
In a 2,000-word response, Lo asked An to prove how Ma was selling out Taiwan and called the accusation “defamatory.”
“President Ma has lived in Taiwan for more than 60 years and Taiwan is his home,” Lo wrote. “If Mr An does not sell out his hometown, why should the president? I am also born and bred in Taiwan. I cannot think of any reason why I would help someone sell out Taiwan.”
Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, moved to Taiwan with his family when he was aged one.
Comparing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration with that of the DPP, which was in power from 2000 to 2008, Lo said Taiwan lost six diplomatic allies when the DPP was in power. Under Ma, the country has maintained solid relations with its 23 allied countries and 43 countries or regions have granted ROC passport holders visa-waiver privileges since Ma came to office, he said.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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