A recent survey found that most people approved of the outcome of a historic meeting between the top officials of the Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office earlier this month, the council said in a statement on Tuesday.
More than 60 percent of the respondents to a poll commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council said they approved of council Minister Wang Yu-chi’s (王郁琦) Feb. 11 to Feb. 14 visit to China, the council said.
Wang met Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Nanjing on Feb. 11.
The survey found that 65.1 percent of respondents felt that Wang’s trip and his meeting with Zhang helped direct interactions between officials from the two sides, while 61 percent felt the trip would help the development of cross-strait links, the council said.
Fifty-one percent of respondents said the Wang-Zhang meeting was “a major breakthrough” in official cross-strait interaction, 67.1 percent supported the idea of top officials from the council and the TAO continuing to hold meetings and 63.1 percent supported the establishment of a regular communication mechanism between the two agencies, the council said.
It said it will make efforts to promote the formation of such a mechanism to handle major issues.
The survey also found that 67.9 percent of respondents supported the signing of a cross-strait agreement on meteorological cooperation, the council said.
A seismic monitoring cooperation agreement set to be signed by the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits was backed by 72.6 percent of respondents, the council said.
The telephone survey was conducted by Taiwan Real Survey Co from Feb. 20 to Feb. 22 among people aged over 20. A total of 1,068 valid samples were collected and the survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
HEALTHCARE: Following a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling, Taiwanese traveling overseas for six months would no longer be able to suspend their insurance Measures allowing people to suspend National Health Insurance (NHI) services if they plan to leave the country for six months would be abolished starting Dec. 23, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday. The decision followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and that it would invalidate the regulation automatically unless the NHIA amended it to conform with the Constitution. The agency would amend the regulations to remove the articles and sections that allow the suspension of NHI services, and also introduce provisional clauses for those who suspended their NHI services before Dec. 23, Shih said. According to
Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊) yesterday apologized after the suicide of a civil servant earlier this month and announced that a supervisor accused of workplace bullying would be demoted. On Nov. 4, a 39-year-old information analyst at the Workforce Development Agency’s (WDA) northern branch, which covers greater Taipei and Keelung, as well as Yilan, Lienchiang and Kinmen counties, was found dead in their office. WDA northern branch director Hsieh Yi-jung (謝宜容), who has been accused of involvement in workplace bullying, would be demoted to a nonsupervisory position, Ho told a news conference in Taipei. WDA Director-General Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良) said he would
RSS