Tag: taiwan china

  • Ukraine and Taiwan construct commonplace ties, defying drive from China

    Lately, participants of the Ukrainian parliament created a cross-parliamentary caucus to advertise financial and cultural exchanges with Taiwan.

    Oleksandr Merezhko, the pinnacle of the Ukrainian Parliament’s international coverage committee, praised Taiwan’s “fast” reaction to Russia’s invasion.

    “Taiwan’s parliament followed a answer in reinforce of Ukraine in no time they usually additionally imposed strict sanctions on Russia, which was once in point of fact useful to us,” Merezhko, who initiated the caucus, advised DW.

    “Taiwan additionally presented humanitarian support price thousands and thousands of US bucks to reinforce Ukraine,” he added.

    Russia,China construct ties in stressful occasions

    Sooner than Russia introduced its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese language counterpart Xi Jinping met and declared a “no limits” friendship between their international locations.

    Because the warfare drags on, China has walked a effective line, warding off condemning the invasion with out explicitly supporting it.

    In a commentary launched after a gathering between Chinese language International Minister Wang Yi and Ukraine’s best diplomat Dmytro Kuleba at the sidelines of the UN Common Meeting in New York final week, the Chinese language International Ministry mentioned that Beijing is “dedicated to discussion” for peace in Ukraine and that “international locations deserve recognize for his or her sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    “We at all times stand at the aspect of peace, and can proceed to play a optimistic position,” it mentioned.

    International Minister Kuleba mentioned that Ukraine “attaches significance to the global standing and necessary affect of China,” and “expects the Chinese language aspect to play the most important position in assuaging the present disaster,” in step with the clicking commentary from Beijing.

    Alternatively, parliamentarian Merezhko mentioned that Beijing has at all times supported Moscow in the back of the scenes.

    “China was once ready and seeing whether or not Russia would set up to take Kyiv in 3 days or no longer. To me, it’s a sign that they’re hoping Russia would decapitate the federal government in Ukraine and set up a puppet regime,” he mentioned, calling the no limits partnership “completely unacceptable.”

    Merezhko additionally accused Beijing of spreading Russian narratives thru Chinese language state media retailers, as an example through blaming the USA for the warfare. China additionally continues to buy Russian power, which Merezhko mentioned was once financing the Russian warfare gadget.

    “China proved to be a chum of our enemy,” he added.

    Ukraine warfare forces ‘mirrored image’ in Taiwan

    Claire Wang, a Taiwanese legislator who participated in a digital assembly on August 25 with Ukraine’s pro-Taiwan caucus, advised DW that the warfare in Ukraine has driven Taiwan to replicate by itself strategic scenario.

    “Taiwan is an overly small nation and prefer Ukraine, we are facing an overly unfriendly neighbor. I believe it’s just right to determine one of these staff with Ukraine,” she mentioned.

    Beijing places drive on international locations that search to construct more potent, casual ties with Taiwan, which it considers to be Chinese language territory that can in the future be reunited with the mainland.

    Underneath the “one China” coverage, the Other people’s Republic of China (PRC) is identified because the “sole criminal govt of China.” Alternatively, the coverage does no longer explicitly imply international locations acknowledge Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan, resulting in a diplomatic gray house.

    Ukraine acknowledges the only China coverage, as does the USA and different Western international locations.

    Merezhko mentioned that Beijing is making an attempt to forestall pro-Taiwan Ukrainian lawmakers from setting up nearer ties with Taipei. He mentioned the Chinese language International Ministry even submitted a proper grievance to the Ukrainian fee d’affaires in Beijing.

    “It’s our proper to create our personal teams dedicated to a pending matter and the management of the parliament will have to simply claim this brazenly all the way through the parliamentary assembly,” Merezhko mentioned.

    “Sadly, the declaration hasn’t took place, and it’s been greater than a month. I believe that is on account of the Chinese language affect,” he added.

    Taiwan reaches out to Europe

    Regardless of China’s competitive reaction to Taiwan’s rising engagement with different international locations, parliamentary delegations from Germany, the UK, and Denmark are anticipated to discuss with Taiwan within the coming months.

    “Taiwan gained an exceptional stage of Ecu reinforce previously two years and on this procedure, parliamentary international relations was once one of the crucial precious gear,” former Ecu Parliament political adviser Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, advised DW.

    “Growing the gang signifies expanding consciousness of Taiwan as a fellow democracy that still faces risk from a antagonistic neighbor, a risk each the folks of Taiwan and Ukraine regard as existential,” she added.

    Merezhko mentioned it could be a “commonplace” factor for Ukrainian parliamentarians to discuss with Taiwan.

    “We’re each democracies combating for our survival and after we reinforce each and every different, it makes either one of us more potent,” he mentioned. “It makes democracies world wide more potent.”

    The lawmaker often known as for the status quo of a “consultant workplace of Taipei,” a de facto embassy, in Kyiv and vice versa.

    “I’m in desire of securing global agreements with Taiwan, which can be the similar type that’s concluded between Poland and Taiwan. I’m in desire of growing a wide variety of relationships, together with cultural, humanitarian, and financial family members. I wish to see Taiwan taking on roles in rebuilding Ukraine,” he added.

  • China pays the fee if it dares to invade: Taiwan MP’s caution over army drills

    Taiwan lawmaker Wang Ting-yu stated that if China dares to release an invasion of Taiwan, then they’ll pay the fee they can not come up with the money for.

    Ting-yu, who could also be part of Taiwan’s Overseas Affairs and Nationwide Protection Committee, said that the island cherishes its democracy, freedom and human rights and that provides it the arrogance and power to take care of any outdoor risk.

    “We do not want an army war. But when China dares to release an invasion of Taiwan, then they’ll pay the fee they can not come up with the money for,” Ting-yu warned.

    He additional claimed that China launching missiles at Taiwan isn’t on account of the stress bobbing up out of US Area Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s talk over with however as a result of Chinese language President Xi Jinping is “shedding his face”.

    “The entire army workout routines, all of the missile launches against Taiwan don’t seem to be on account of Taiwan or Pelosi, this is because Xi Jinping wishes an outlet to liberate home force,” Ting-yu advised India These days.

    “China shot 11 missiles against Taiwan in 3 other places slightly a long way clear of the island. That is for the primary time since 1996, China introduced missiles against Taiwan. The placement is stressful however we’re assured that the location is beneath keep watch over,” he added.

    Taiwan isn’t a part of China and entire international is aware of that: Wang Ting Yu (@MPWangTingyu), member of international affairs and defence panel.#Taiwan #China #Newstrack @rahulkanwal %.twitter.com/PmLLe9GAVm

    — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 4, 2022

    “The Chinese language army risk is actual, concrete and large. Regardless of who visits Taiwan, China makes use of its army to threaten us on a daily basis,” Ting-yu stated, including that even earlier than Nancy Pelosi’s talk over with, Chinese language plane crossed the island’s air defence zone.

    If China dares to release invasion of Taiwan then they’ll pay the fee they can not come up with the money for: Wang Ting Yu (@MPWangTingyu), member of international affairs and defence panel.#Taiwan #China #Newstrack @rahulkanwal %.twitter.com/xgFae3lcjg

    — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 4, 2022

    Describing how the location isn’t the same as the Russia-Ukraine battle, Ting-yu stated Russia and Ukraine are hooked up by means of land whilst Taiwan is separated from China by means of the Taiwan Strait, giving the island a possibility to repel Chinese language army threats for many years.

    WILL US COME TO TAIWAN’S AIDE?

    Taiwan MP Wang Ting-yu stated it’s Taipei’s accountability to offer protection to the rustic from any invasion, however it’s not within the global pastime to sit down and watch China invade Taiwan.

    To offer protection to our nation it is our accountability… If China dominates Taiwan then Japan will want to depend on Chinese language mercy to have their energy provide: Wang Ting Yu (@MPWangTingyu), member of international affairs and defence panel.#Taiwan #China #Newstrack @rahulkanwal %.twitter.com/1s7Q2kovNP

    — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 4, 2022

    “To offer protection to our nation is our personal nation. We can not depend on global buddies. Our technique is to shield our nation even with out international assist. And do we’ve got the arrogance that the US will be offering a serving to hand? We do not calculate that. However we all know Taiwan is necessary,” the lawmaker stated.

    “Taiwan has by-partisan connections in the United States. We believe our buddies, however we rely on ourselves,” he added.

    INDIA-TAIWAN RELATIONS

    Ting-yu stated that India is within the east and Taiwan is within the west within the Indo-Pacific area and if each countries can cooperate they may be able to stay the area stablised and filthy rich.

    If we (India and Taiwan) cooperate, we will be able to stay this area stabilised and filthy rich: Wang Ting Yu (@MPWangTingyu), member of international affairs and defence panel.#Taiwan #China #Newstrack @rahulkanwal %.twitter.com/ZqQ1U98TD0

    — IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 4, 2022

    “If we [India and Taiwan] cooperate, we will be able to stay this area stabilised and filthy rich and make China perceive to not use competitive techniques to bully its neighbours,” Wang Ting-yu stated.

    — ENDS —

  • China warns of ‘forceful measures’ if US Area Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwan

    China’s executive warned on Tuesday that it could take “forceful measures” if US Area of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, after the Monetary Instances mentioned she would move to the Chinese language-claimed island subsequent month.

    Pelosi and her delegation will even discuss with Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, and spend time in Hawaii on the headquarters of US Indo-Pacific command, the London newspaper added, bringing up other folks conversant in the topic.

    Taiwan’s International Ministry mentioned it has “no longer gained related knowledge” about any discuss with.

    Requested in regards to the record, Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy leader of body of workers, mentioned, “We don’t ascertain or deny global go back and forth upfront because of longstanding safety protocols.”

    The Democratic chief’s discuss with to Taiwan were postponed from April, after she examined sure for COVID-19. On the time, China mentioned one of these discuss with would significantly impact Chinese language-US members of the family.

    Talking in Beijing, Chinese language International Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian mentioned any discuss with through Pelosi would “severely undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

    “If america facet obstinately clings to this path, China will certainly take resolute and forceful measures to firmly protect its nationwide sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he mentioned. “The USA should be absolutely answerable for all of the penalties led to through this.”

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    US State Division spokesperson Ned Worth, requested about China’s response, mentioned: “I consider the international ministry used to be weighing in on a hypothetical. This is one thing that I can hesitate doing right here”.

    Taiwan faces mounting power from China, which considers the democratically ruled island its personal territory. The problem is a continuing irritant in ties between Beijing and Washington.

    Taiwan, alternatively, has been heartened through persisted make stronger presented through US President Joe Biden’s management, which has many times spoken of its “rock-solid” dedication to the island.

    Pelosi, a long-time critic of China, held a web based assembly with Taiwanese Vice President William Lai in January as he wrapped up a discuss with to the USA and Honduras.

    The White Area had expressed fear in regards to the Pelosi go back and forth, the Monetary Instances mentioned, bringing up 3 other folks conversant in the placement.

    There have been divisions within the Democratic US management over whether or not Pelosi will have to discuss with Taiwan, the FT quoted two assets as pronouncing.

    Some officers believed it were more straightforward to justify a discuss with in April, as that used to be simply after the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it added.

    ALSO WATCH | Actual Reason why Why China Opposes Taiwan’s Closeness To US

    A spokesperson for america Nationwide Safety Council would no longer touch upon “go back and forth that the Speaker’s place of work itself has no longer introduced,” and reiterated that the USA stays dedicated to its One China coverage.

    One by one, america Military’s seventh Fleet mentioned the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Benfold performed a regimen Taiwan Strait transit on Tuesday, “via global waters according to global regulation.”

    “The send transited via a hall within the Strait this is past the territorial sea of any coastal state,” it mentioned in a observation.

    The USA has been wearing out such voyages throughout the stretch of water keeping apart Taiwan and China about as soon as a month. This has angered Beijing, which perspectives them as an indication of make stronger for the island.

    This month, China despatched opponents around the Taiwan Strait’s median line, an actionTaiwan described as a provocation. The incident got here right through a discuss with to Taipei through Senator Rick Scott, a Republican member of america Senate Armed Services and products Committee.

    On Monday, China requested the USA to instantly cancel a possible sale of army technical help to Taiwan value an estimated $108 million.

    — ENDS —

  • Olympics: Group Taiwan says it’ll be at Beijing Video games opening rite

    Taiwan’s group for the Beijing Wintry weather Olympics shall be on the opening and shutting ceremonies after being advised through the World Olympic Committee it was once required to take part.

    Chinese language-claimed Taiwan has feared Beijing may “downgrade” Taiwan’s standing through placing its athletes along the ones from Chinese language-run Hong Kong on the opening rite, a senior Taiwan reliable aware of the subject advised Reuters closing week.

    Sub-tropical Taiwan, which has no wintry weather wearing custom and hasn’t ever gained a medal on the wintry weather Video games, is sending 4 athletes to Beijing, the similar quantity because the closing wintry weather Video games in 2018. Taiwan had mentioned on Friday the group would now not be on the opening or final ceremonies, blaming not on time flights and hard anti-COVID-19 laws.

    However Taiwan’s Olympic committee mentioned past due Monday it had won “a number of notices” from the World Olympic Committee (IOC) “requiring all delegations to the 2022 Beijing Wintry weather Olympics to cooperate in sending team of workers to wait the hole and shutting ceremonies”.

    In accordance with its admire of the Olympic spirit and after discussions with Taiwan’s Sports activities Management, they’ll “alter” the plan and “cooperate with the coverage to ship workforce to wait the hole and shutting ceremonies”.

    It didn’t say how lots of the 15-member group, together with running shoes, could be there. The Beijing Video games are going down amid heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, together with repeated Chinese language army task close to the island.

    Taiwan competes in maximum wearing occasions, together with the Olympics, as “Chinese language Taipei” on the insistence of Beijing, which sees democratically ruled Taiwan as a part of “one China”. On Wednesday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Administrative center referred to Taiwan’s group as being from “China, Taipei”, somewhat than the reliable terminology of “Chinese language Taipei”. That drew a rebuke from Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council, which mentioned China deliberately used the unsuitable identify.

  • ‘We’re Taiwanese’: China’s rising risk hardens island’s id

    When Li Yuan-hsin, a 36-year-old highschool instructor, travels out of the country, other people frequently suppose she is Chinese language.

    No, she tells them. She is Taiwanese.

    To her, the glory is essential. China could also be the land of her ancestors, however Taiwan is the place she used to be born and raised, a house she defines as a lot via its verdant mountains and bustling night time markets as via its powerful democracy. In highschool, she had planted a bit blue flag on her table to turn beef up for her most popular political candidate; since then, she has voted in each and every presidential election.

    Li Yuan-hsin, proper, together with her husband and daughter at an afternoon care heart in Chiayi, Taipei, Dec. 10, 2021. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    “I like this island,” Li stated. “I like the liberty right here.”

    Smartly over 90% of Taiwan’s other people hint their roots to mainland China, however greater than ever, they’re embracing an id this is distinct from that in their communist-ruled neighbor. Beijing’s strident authoritarianism — and its declare over Taiwan — has most effective solidified the island’s id, now central to a dispute that has became the Taiwan Strait into one in all Asia’s largest doable flashpoints.

    To Beijing, Taiwan’s push to tell apart itself from the mainland poses a perilous impediment to the Chinese language authorities’s efforts to persuade, or coerce, Taiwan into its political orbit. China’s chief, Xi Jinping, warned in October towards the fad he sees as secession: “Those that omit their heritage, betray their motherland and search to separate the rustic will come to no excellent finish.”

    Maximum of Taiwan’s citizens aren’t concerned about turning into absorbed via a communist-ruled China. However they aren’t pushing for formal independence for the island, both, who prefer to steer clear of the danger of battle.

    The rainbow village in Taichung, Taiwan, Oct. 18, 2021. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    It leaves each side at a perilous deadlock. The extra entrenched Taiwan’s id turns into, the extra Beijing might really feel forced to accentuate its army and diplomatic marketing campaign to power the island into respecting its declare of sovereignty.

    Li is amongst greater than 60% of the island’s 24 million individuals who establish as only Taiwanese, thrice the share in 1992, consistent with surveys via the Election Learn about Heart at Nationwide Chengchi College in Taipei. Best 2% known as Chinese language, down from 25% 3 a long time in the past.

    A part of the shift is generational — her 82-year-old grandmother, Wang Yu-lan, as an example, is amongst that shrinking minority.

    To Wang, who fled the mainland a long time in the past, being Chinese language is set celebrating her cultural and familial roots. She paints classical Chinese language ink landscapes and presentations them at the partitions of her house. She spends hours training the erhu, a two-stringed conventional Chinese language device. She recounts tales of a land so loved that her grandparents introduced a handful of soil with them after they left. She nonetheless wonders what came about to the gold and silver bars they’d buried underneath a heated brick mattress in Beijing.

    Outdated footage of Wang Yu-lan, together with one from her wedding ceremony, at her house in Taiwan, Oct. 17, 2021. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    Wang used to be 9 when she landed in Taiwan in 1948, a part of the 1 million or so Chinese language who retreated with the nationalists all through China’s Civil Warfare with the communists. The island is set 100 miles off China’s southeastern coast, however to lots of the new arrivals, it felt like any other international. The Chinese language settlers who were there for hundreds of years — and made up the bulk — spoke a unique dialect. The island’s first citizens had arrived 1000’s of years in the past and had been extra carefully associated with the peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific than to the Chinese language. Europeans had arrange buying and selling posts at the island. The Eastern had governed over it for fifty years.

    Wang and the opposite exiles lived in villages designated for “mainlander” army officials and their households, the place the aroma of peppercorn-infused Sichuan cooking mingled with the pickled scents of cuisine from southern Guizhou province. On a daily basis, she and different girls within the village would collect to shout slogans like “Recapture the mainland from the communist bandits!”

    Through the years, that dream pale. In 1971, the United International locations severed diplomatic ties with Taipei and officially identified the communist authorities in Beijing. The US and different nations would later observe go well with, dealing a blow to mainlanders like Wang. How may just she nonetheless declare to be Chinese language, she questioned, if the arena didn’t even acknowledge her as such?

    “There is not any extra hope,” Wang recalled pondering on the time.

    Liberty Sq., an infinite plaza the place other people frequently collect to play song, dance, workout and protest, in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2021. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    Wang and different mainlanders who yearned to go back to China had all the time been a minority in Taiwan. However a couple of generations later, amongst their kids and grandchildren, that longing has morphed into an apprehension of Beijing’s expansive ambitions. Below Xi, Beijing has signaled its impatience with Taiwan in more and more menacing techniques, sending army jets to buzz Taiwanese airspace on a near-daily foundation.

    When close by Hong Kong erupted in anti-government protests in 2019, Li, the schoolteacher, adopted the inside track on a daily basis. She noticed Beijing’s crackdown there and its destruction of civil liberties as proof that the celebration may just no longer be relied on to stay its promise to maintain Taiwan’s autonomy if the perimeters unified.

    Li’s wariness has most effective grown with the pandemic. Beijing continues to dam Taiwan from global teams, such because the International Well being Group, a transparent signal to her that the Communist Celebration values politics above other people. Taiwan’s good fortune in fighting the coronavirus, in spite of those demanding situations, had crammed her with pleasure.

    Gazing the Tokyo Olympics remaining yr, Li felt offended that athletes from Taiwan needed to compete below a flag that used to be no longer their very own. After they received, the tune that performed in venues used to be no longer their anthem. Relatively than Taiwan or Republic of China, their staff carried the title Chinese language Taipei.

    Taken in combination, those frustrations have most effective steeled the Taiwanese unravel towards the Chinese language Communist Celebration. The worldwide grievance of China for its dealing with of COVID-19 and its repression at house rekindled a long-standing debate in Taiwan about shedding “China” from the island’s authentic title. No motion used to be taken, although; this kind of transfer via Taiwan would had been observed via Beijing as formalizing its de facto independence.

    Antigovernment protesters in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    To younger other people like Li, it used to be additionally useless. Independence to them isn’t an aspiration; it’s truth.

    “We’re Taiwanese in our pondering,” she stated. “We don’t want to claim independence as a result of we already are necessarily impartial.”

    That rising self belief has now come to outline Taiwan’s recent individuality, along side the island’s company include of democracy. To many younger other people in Taiwan, to name your self Taiwanese is more and more to take a stand for democratic values — not to, in different phrases, be part of communist-ruled China.

    Below its present president, Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwan authorities has situated the island as a Chinese language society this is democratic and tolerant, not like the colossus around the strait. As Beijing has ramped up its oppression of ethnic minorities within the title of nationwide cohesion, the Taiwan authorities has sought to include the island’s Indigenous teams and different minorities.

    Taiwan “represents without delay an affront to the narrative and an obstacle to the regional ambitions of the Chinese language Communist Celebration,” Tsai stated remaining yr.

    Scholars visiting the Armed Forces Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 5, 2021. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Occasions)

    Many Taiwanese establish with this posture and feature rallied across the nations prepared to beef up Taipei. When Beijing imposed an unofficial business blockade to punish Lithuania for strengthening ties with Taiwan, other people in Taiwan rushed to shop for Lithuanian strong point merchandise like crackers and chocolate.

    Democracy isn’t simply an expression of Taiwan’s id — it’s at its core. After the nationalists ended just about 4 a long time of martial legislation in 1987, subjects in the past deemed taboo, together with questions of id and requires independence, might be mentioned. Many driven to reclaim the native Taiwanese language and tradition that used to be misplaced when the nationalists imposed a mainland Chinese language id at the island.

    Rising up within the Nineteen Eighties, Li used to be faintly acutely aware of the divide between the Taiwanese and mainlanders. She knew that going to her “mainlander” grandparents’ space after faculty intended attending to devour red meat buns and chive dumplings — heavier, saltier meals than the Taiwanese palate of her maternal grandparents, who fed her fried rice noodles and sautéed sour melon.

    Such distinctions changed into much less glaring over the years. A lot of Taiwan’s citizens at the moment are proud in their island’s culinary choices, whether or not it’s the vintage pork noodle soup — a mixture of mainland influences distinctive to Taiwan — or bubble milk tea, a contemporary invention.

    In Taiwan’s effort to carve out a definite id, officers additionally revised textbooks to center of attention extra at the historical past and geography of the island relatively than at the mainland. In class, Li discovered that Eastern colonizers — whom her grandmother, Wang, so frequently denounced for his or her wartime atrocities — were the most important in modernizing the island’s financial system. She and her classmates discovered about figures like Tan Teng-pho, a neighborhood artist who used to be one in all 28,000 other people killed via nationalist authorities troops in 1947, a bloodbath referred to as the two/28 Incident.

    Now, as China below Xi has change into extra authoritarian, the political gulf that separates it from Taiwan has most effective appeared more and more insurmountable.

    “After Xi Jinping took place of business, he oversaw the regression of democracy,” Li stated. She cited Xi’s transfer in 2018 to abolish time period limits at the presidency, paving the way in which for him to rule indefinitely. “I felt then that unification could be unimaginable.”

    Li issues to Beijing controls on speech and dissent as antithetical to Taiwan.

    She compares Tiananmen Sq. in Beijing, which she visited in 2005 as a college pupil, with public areas in Taipei. Within the Chinese language capital, surveillance cameras loomed in each and every path whilst armed police watched the crowds. Her government-approved information made no point out of the Communist Celebration’s brutal crackdown in 1989 on pro-democracy protesters that she had discovered about as a center faculty pupil in Taiwan.

    She considered Liberty Sq. in Taipei, via comparability, an infinite plaza the place other people frequently collect to play song, dance, workout and protest.

    “After that go back and forth, I loved Taiwan so a lot more,” Li stated.

    This text at the start gave the impression in The New York Occasions.