The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed Taiwan’s inclusion in the UK’s six-month visa-waiver program and said the government was considering reciprocating the offer.
The UK is the 31st county to grant Taiwanese visa-free privilege. Other countries include some of Taiwan’s allies and a few non-allies such as South Korea, Singapore and Japan.
The British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) said yesterday that starting on March 3, Republic of China (ROC) passport holders who wish to visit the UK for less than six months for business or tourism purposes, family visits or as students and who won’t be working there will no longer require a visa.
“Britain enjoys strong commercial and cultural ties with Taiwan,” BTCO’s new director David Campbell said. “Lifting the visa requirement for stays of less than six months will help to build on that to the benefit of both British and Taiwanese people.”
“We believe Taiwan’s inclusion in the visa-waiver program will encourage more Taiwanese tourists to visit Britain and help promote more exchanges among the two peoples,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said.
The UK made the decision after it concluded that Taiwan had satisfied all the criteria required by the UK Border Agency based on a worldwide review of regime carried out in 2007 and last year.
In his farewell press conference last month, former BTCO director Michael Reilly said London’s “only real area of concern” on admitting Taiwan to the visa-waiver program was the massive migration of Chinese illegal aliens into the UK, saying such privilege could encourage the Chinese use to use ROC passports to smuggle people into the UK.
“The problem of fraudulent documentation or false documentation is a problem around the world. How we address that is to have very close links with migration authorities around the world and that certainly includes Taiwan,” Campbell said, adding that the UK enjoys close and regular contacts with Taiwanese authorities and that those ties would be further cemented in the future.
Asked if London is worried that ROC passports might become an attractive tool for smuggling rings, Campbell said: “I am aware that in recent months, Taiwan has undertaken a number of developments and it is certainly a shared interest around the world to try and combat misuse of documentation.”
“We are confident that with those expert contacts we have that risks such as that can be managed,” he said.
Bureau of Consular Affairs Chief Lo Yu-chung (羅由中) said the announcement showed that London appreciated Taiwan’s issuance of electronic passports. Lu urged other countries to follow the UK’s lead.
BTCO said Taiwanese visiting the UK under the visa-waiver program still had to satisfy authorities at their port of entry that they meet the UK’s admission requirements and must have with them supporting documents such as return flight tickets, evidence of funding, letters from sponsors or the businesses they are visiting, or the school they plan to study at.
The BTCO received more than 28,000 visa applications last year.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole