Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) will serve concurrently as deputy head of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), the council said yesterday.
Chang will fill the position left vacant by Straits Exchange Foundation vice chairman and secretary-general Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉), who served his last day on Wednesday, the council said.
The council and Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) established a communication platform last year, paving the way for a meeting later this month between their respective chiefs, Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and Zhang Zhijun (張志軍).
Chang has a major role in coordinating the details of the planned meeting, the Chinese-language United Evening News reported yesterday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
After Chang assumes the post of SEF vice chairman and secretary-general, he is expected to integrate the two main cross-strait communication channels — between the SEF and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, and between the council and TAO, according to the report.
Since Kao tendered his resignation last month, speculation about his successor has been rife, with Chang tipped as the top candidate.
Since Chang will be holding two positions, Straits Exchange Foundation Deputy Secretary-General Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) will be promoted to deputy chairman to help share the workload, the council said.
Chang, who has been working at the council since 2012, formerly served in the National Security Council.
He joined the People First Party in 2000 and worked closely with its chairman, James Soong (宋楚瑜), serving as director of the party’s policy center.
In 2005, Chang arranged a meeting between Soong and former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), then-general secretary of Chinese Communist Party, after communicating with then-TAO chief Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
Chang’s first task upon assuming the SEF post will be to prepare for the 10th round of cross-strait talks, the United Evening News reported.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
RSS