DEFINITIONS:
Ko Wen-je said he would not ask that Taiwan be treated with ‘equal dignity,’ as China has not intentionally taken advantage of Taiwan
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By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
The Taipei City Government yesterday announced that the Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum is to be held on Tuesday in a “hybrid meeting” of the cities, with the theme of “resilience, sustainability and humanities.”
The forum would be held in the same hybrid meeting format as the past two years — with the two city mayors and city government officials in two venues meeting through videoconferencing due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Taipei City Government said.
With global warming driving natural disasters around the world, and as extreme weather can cause severe damage and threatens both cities, Taipei and Shanghai are striving to achieve sustainable development to become resilient and capable of adapting and facing disasters, it said.
Photo: CNA
The deputy mayors of the cities are each to give a speech on “energy saving and carbon reduction, and net zero emissions,” while sharing their cities’ policies and approaches to addressing climate change challenges, it said.
Based on the forum’s agenda, the meeting is to last about an hour, with the opening ceremony at 10:30am and the forum ending at 11:30am, making this year’s event the shortest since the first meeting in 2010.
At Taipei City Council meetings on Thursday and Friday, councilors asked Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) why the forum was being held, as the council in January passed a budget for the forum with a provision stating that “if the Chinese Communist Party’s [CCP] aircraft or warships continue to disturb Taiwan before the forum, the budget cannot be used.”
Ko brushed off the questions, saying that the definition of “CCP aircraft disturbing Taiwan” is unclear, and he also refused to confirm the date of the meeting.
Asked by Taipei City Councilor Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) on Friday whether the mayor would express in his opening speech at the forum that Taiwan wants to be treated with “equal dignity” and that the CCP should not pursue a military attack, Ko said that he would.
Asked to elaborate on his speech plans, Ko yesterday said that Taiwan and China have close economic and trade relations.
Exports to China accounted for 42.3 percent of the total goods leaving Taiwan, but there is trouble when people of the two sides start to dislike each other, he said.
Moscow and Washington had a hotline during the Cold War, but Taiwan and China ignore each other, he said, adding that as there are more than 1 million Taiwanese in China and more than 300,000 Chinese spouses in Taiwan, there should still be communication between the two sides.
However, Ko said he had not added the demand of “Taiwan wanting equal dignity” to his speech, as the forum has always been about livelihood issues at the municipal level, and China has not intentionally taken advantage of Taiwan.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday issued a news release praising the Twin-City Forum as an important exchange platform between Taipei and Shanghai.
Enhancing exchanges and cooperation is what people want, the office said.
It also supports expanded and in-depth exchanges between the two cities to benefit compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, it added.
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