China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) warned the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday that it risked serious problems if it pressed for independence.
“If [their] cross-strait policy is established on a ‘Taiwan independence’ splittist basis ... it does not matter how ingenious the packaging, it will certainly ... damage the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and affect stability in the Taiwan Strait,” TAO spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) said.
The remark came as DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won the party’s primary yesterday, securing her candidacy for next year’s presidential election, the first woman in Taiwan’s history to run for the post.
In a sign of a close-run contest, a poll taken shortly after the DPP announcement by the Prediction Market Center of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University gave the opposition party a 50.5 percent probability of winning the poll and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), 49.9 percent probability.
The KMT held on to key seats in local elections last year, but fell behind the DPP in terms of percentage of the overall vote. The result was seen as a test of the party’s popularity ahead of the Jan. 14 poll.
Tsai, 54, a polished English speaker who holds a law doctorate from the London School of Economics, will run against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT.
“Right now, Ma and Tsai have about an equal chance of winning,” said David Huang (黃偉峰), associate research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS