Taipei City Government’s working group on Chinese affairs is to be reorganized and made directly answerable to Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), city officials said yesterday.
The city’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission chairman Chen Ming-shiun (陳銘薰) said that while the working group responsible for coordinating relations between the city and China was formerly subject to his commission, it would now report directly to the mayor.
The working group would meet next week to discuss policies and an action plan for relations with China, Ko said yesterday.
“I am opposed to secret envoys,” Ko said, adding that he hoped for an “open and transparent” dialogue with China.
Chen said the working group had mainly been responsible for organizing cross-strait events.
However, Ko said it would now serve as a “consultant” body to the city government on China policy.
Ko promised that the body would include a diverse array of figures from the pan-blue and pan-green camps, adding that former International Affairs Committee deputy director Jao Ching-yu (饒慶鈺) would head the group.
Taipei City Government spokesman Sydney Lin (林鶴明) said the group’s organization and membership would differ from that seen in former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration, with more details to be announced next week.
Ko’s comments follow a report on Web site Storm Media that group members would include noted cross-strait experts, including former Mainland Affairs Council chairmen Su Chi (蘇起) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chen Min-tong (陳明通) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Ko’s China policy has attracted speculation that he might have a possible cross-strait role as an independent politician through the annual Taipei-Shanghai forum.
While Ko has called for an expansion of the forum to include other cities, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (楊雄) has said the forum can be held only on the foundation of the so-called “1992 consensus.”
Ko has not expressed agreement with the “1992 consensus,” instead saying that cross-strait ties should move forward on their existing foundation.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both Taiwan and China acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means. In 2006, Su said he "formulated" the term “1992 consensus” in 2000 when he was Mainland Affairs Council chairman.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS