Grenada, which used to be a staunch ally of Taiwan, may switch its allegiance to China after its prime minister, Keith Mitchell, wrapped up a trip to Beijing to discuss establishing diplomatic ties, media reports said yesterday.
"The prime minister has not formally announced the decision. He only talked to the media regarding the possibility of establishing official relations with China. Mr. Mitchell is due to give a televised speech on Monday [today]. We will wait to see what he is going to say," said Michel Lu (呂慶龍), spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After returning from an unprecedented trip to China, the prime minister suggested it would be in Grenada's best interest to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing -- a move that would require severing its long-standing relationship with rival Taiwan.
But Mitchell did not specify whether he had reached any agreements with the Chinese government during his visit last week to seek aid for hurricane relief and economic development.
"We had extensive discussions on economic and bilateral relations, and therefore we have reached some decisions as far as the future of our country is concerned," Mitchell said after returning on Friday.
"The world is changing and changing very fast. China is going to be a powerful economic country in every respect and we have to recognize this, and therefore we have to establish some form of contact."
The prime minister said he would discuss the details of his trip in an address to the nation today.
China said on Tuesday it would be happy to see Grenada sever ties with Taiwan, which offered millions of dollars in aid after Hurricane Ivan hammered the Caribbean country in September.
Mitchell met with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (
Taiwanese officials said before Mitchell's trip there they were watching closely and would try to convince Grenada that maintaining relations with Taipei was the best choice.
"Taiwan has provided us with enormous support in the past," Mitchell said.
"Clearly anything we intend to do, we will certainly let them know about," he said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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