The Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) belong to China and all Chinese who love their country have the responsibility to safeguard them, Master Hsing Yun (星雲法師), founder of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, said yesterday.
Hsing Yun made the remarks during a visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), who is leading a Chinese cultural exchange delegation in Taiwan.
Commenting on the recent row over the Diaoyutais, Hsing Yun said that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should work together on the issue.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
Hsing Yun said that religion has played a great role in furthering cross-strait ties and since “Taiwan is also a part of China” and both sides of the Strait are one, temples in China should not prohibit Taiwanese monks from becoming the heads of temples.
Praising Hsing Yun for his “patriotic sentiment,” Chen talked about the contributions Hsing Yun had made to cross-strait relations.
Chen said that when he was heading the Taiwan Affairs Office in 2000, cross-strait relations were very tense and if it was not for Hsing Yun’s call to allow Chinese tourists to come to Taiwan, relations between the two sides would not have be what they are today.
“Compassion is boundless,” Chen said, adding that with cross-strait relations developing peacefully under the watch of those who have touched upon the bodhicitta concept, “how far can we be from achieving our ideal goal?”
Bodhicitta is the attainment or will to attain the state in which a person has spontaneous and limitless compassion for all sentient beings.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS