Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Jennifer Wang (王如玄) and China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) Chairman Chang An-le (張安樂), better known as the White Wolf, attended the Chinese Women’s Federation general meeting yesterday, at which Chang lashed out at the KMT for failing to allow Chinese spouses enjoy the four-year residency requirement for obtaining Republic of China residency that spouses from other nations do.
The Chinese Women’s Federation was founded in 2013 by Chinese spouses to promote the group’s interests. The meeting was attended by KMT politicians.
Wang said that new immigrants are “mothers of Taiwanese children” and each is “one of our own,” adding that various measures benefiting new immigrants, such as granting them the right to work and participate in occupational training before obtaining residency, were made possible when the KMT was in office and when she was Minister for the Council of Labor Affairs.
“It is not easy to make room [for those new measures] as some parties deem new immigrants as ‘not of our kind,’” Wang said.
It takes Chinese spouses six years to become residents, whereas for spouses from other nations it takes four years.
“Are [Chinese spouses] second-class citizens compared with Southeast Asian [spouses]?” Chang said after Wang left the meeting, adding that Wang failed to promise to make reforms.
Hung, who arrived at the meeting after Wang left, asked supporters to vote for the KMT, saying the Democratic Progressive Party and the Taiwan Solidarity Union, have been obstructing legislative proceedings.
Hung said President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has made great advances in diplomatic and cross-strait affairs, but Taiwan’s livelihood might be destroyed when there are people espousing anti-China and China-hating rhetoric, adding that the KMT is a “middle-way and rational” party that “walks through big doors and on big roads” and is not familiar with propaganda and political tactics.
Chang said: “The KMT has lost its party soul; [the people of] the KMT do not dare acknowledge that they are Chinese. The party’s soul is with Hung.”
“The KMT wants our support, that is fine, but it has to promise that after we send its candidates to the legislature, the party would grant Chinese spouses equal rights to the four-year requirement for obtaining national identity,” Chang added.
“With the KMT in office, the requirement for the Chinese spouses has been lowered from eight to six years,” Hung said, adding that the two additional years is “discriminatory” and “unequal.”
Hung said the KMT would make an effort to change the requirement.
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 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