TAIPEI: A group of Chinese officials arrived in Taiwan on Saturday on the first visit in three years, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, to attend a cultural event at a time of soaring military tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s government this week allowed the trip of six officials, led by Liu Xiaodong, deputy head of the Shanghai office of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, to attend the Lantern Festival in Taipei, at the invitation of the city government.
Liu, arriving at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport, did not answer questions from reporters and his group was ushered into a van under heavy security and driven away.
A small group of around a dozen pro-Taiwan independence supporters protested his arrival outside the airport, shouting “Taiwan and China, separate countries” and “Chinese people, get out,” while on the airport road another small group of pro-China supporters shouted their welcome.
Chilly Chen, head of the pro-independence Taiwan Republic Office, told Reuters the Taiwanese people were very hospitable and welcomed visitors but were concerned they were coming to push Chinese policies on the democratic island.
“Everything China does is in the service of politics, and their aim is definitely united front,” Chen added, referring to the name of China’s policy to co-opt non-Communists and Taiwan’s people in particular.
Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said the group has been allowed to come as long as they keep a low profile and it hoped their visit would promote mutual understanding and “healthy and orderly exchanges” going forward.
While China has refused to speak to Taiwan’s government since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, believing she is a separatist, city-to-city exchanges had continued until interrupted by the pandemic.
Still, Tsai’s administration has cautiously been trying to re-open less sensitive people-to-people links since it lifted pandemic-related border controls late last year, aiming to engender goodwill with China.
But China continues to carry out military activities near Taiwan, including almost daily crossings of the Taiwan Strait’s median line by Chinese air force jets, which had previously served as an unofficial barrier.
Chinese officials arrive in Taiwan on first post-pandemic visit
https://arab.news/yec7t
Chinese officials arrive in Taiwan on first post-pandemic visit
- Taiwan’s government this week allowed the trip of six officials to attend the Lantern Festival in Taipei
- A small group of pro-Taiwan independence supporters protested their arrival outside the airport
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
