The “two sides of the [Taiwan] Strait are one family,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) reiterated yesterday at the opening ceremony of the Taipei-Shanghai twin-city forum, the third time he has used the phrase in Shanghai, while Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong (應勇) said that “the compatriots of both sides of the Strait are family members that wish each other well and love each other.”
“We have always held on to the belief that both sides of the Strait are one family,” Ying added.
Ko used the phrase, which has been criticized by pro-independence and other pan-green supporters, for the first time in his speech to the 2015 twin-city forum, and again at the 2017 forum.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Government
In his speech yesterday, the Taipei mayor noted that it was the 10th year the forum has been held and 33 memorandums of understanding have been signed, on a wide variety of issues, during the forums.
The original goal of the forum was for people on both sides of the Strait to have more chances to communicate with one another, to enhance goodwill toward each other and move toward positive cross-strait relations, he said.
“There should be continuity in the exchanges between both, and policies should have stability. We should respect the agreements that were signed and the history of our interactions,” Ko said.
“We should continue to push peaceful development of the two sides of the Strait on the existing political foundation, and together pursue a better future for the people of the two sides,” he said.
He has always believed that “an attitude of mutual trust” and the concept of “two sides of the Strait are one family” can help promote exchanges and enhance goodwill on both sides, he said.
Repeating his “five mutual principles” as his approach to enhance the well-being of people on both sides, Ko also he wanted to push for exchanges so that “everyone can get along with each other peacefully and for the people to live a better life, because after all, a peaceful development for both sides is a common wish.”
Asked by Taiwanese reporters after the ceremony to explain his “one family” idea, Ko said that “it is an expression of attitude, meaning ‘we will be friendly to your people, but we want you to be friendly to Taiwanese’” in return.
The Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that Ko told Shanghai government officials, who greeted him at the airport on Wednesday, that Chinese government officials wanting to visit Taipei face many obstacles, which is an unhealthy situation for which he does not yet have a solution.
Later in the day the National Immigration Agency released a statement saying that the 94.57 percent of applications to visit Taiwan submitted by Chinese officials and professionals in the first five months of the year had been approved, and the approval rate last year was 94.46 percent, so the government was not making it difficult for Chinese officials to visit.
Additional reporting by CNA
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