Former Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou has begun a nine-day trip to mainland China – his third in two years – amid accusations from pro-independence voices that he is compromising the self-ruled island’s interests. Ma’s delegation, which includes a group of Taiwanese university students, was greeted by municipal officials and well-wishers at the airport when they … Read more
Former Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou will visit mainland China later this month, his third visit in the past two years, in another push to promote people-to-people exchanges amid elevated cross-strait tensions. Ma will lead a delegation of Taiwanese youth to visit the cities of Harbin in the northeast and Chengdu in the southwest on a … Read more
Kuma Academy, which encourages the Taiwanese public to prepare for war with the mainland and stand up for the island, was sanctioned on October 14 for “propagating secessionist ideas” and serving as a base for “independence separatist activities”. Also sanctioned were two prominent academy figures – Puma Shen, one of its founders, and business tycoon … Read more
Beijing has accused Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te of escalating hostility after his recent comments that the People’s Republic of China could not be the island’s motherland. Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Lai had not only tried to deceive and intimidate the Taiwan people, harming their interests, but was … Read more
A Taiwanese political activist has been sentenced to nine years in prison in mainland China on charges of “separatism”, a cross-strait first prompting an official travel warning from Taipei. Yang Chih-yuan, 34, was formally arrested in April last year, eight months after being detained in the eastern mainland city of Wenzhou. According to the Taiwan … Read more
Wang’s office said the trip was purely for “personal religious purposes” and had nothing to do with politics. Wang was joined at the temple on Sunday morning by Jiangsu’s Taiwan affairs chief Lian Yueqin. Taiwanese daily China Times reported on Sunday that Wang might pay a courtesy visit to the Taiwan Affairs Office, the mainland … Read more
The mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) released another strongly worded statement on Tuesday evening, saying Lai’s attitude in his inauguration remarks was “extremely rampant” while “his advocacy is even more radical” than before. “The entire speech was filled with antagonism and provocation, lies and deception – the ‘Taiwan independence’ stance is even more radical and … Read more
Taiwan is planning a series of offshore live-fire military drills throughout April around its offshore islets, including Quemoy, a Taiwanese-held outpost which is a short distance from the mainland city of Xiamen. On Wednesday, Chen Binhua, a spokesman for mainland China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Beijing is closely monitoring the movements of the Taiwanese army, … Read more
Beijing says it is holding a Taiwanese soldier who was rescued by mainland Chinese coastguards earlier this week and then tried to conceal his real identity. Chen Binhua, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that man, identified only by the surname Hu, was one of two people rescued by coastguards off the coast … Read more
“The [routes] will be launched as soon as they are ready,” Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday. Once launched, mainland planes could more easily stay over the line, a move analysts said would put more strain on the island’s air defences because of the need to distinguish between military … Read more
