First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) is scheduled to visit Japan next month, a Presidential Office spokeswoman announced yesterday, after a previously planned visit was called off over a naming row involving the exhibition of a National Palace Museum collection in Tokyo.
Chow will go to Japan as the honorary leader of the Vox Nativa children’s choir, spokeswoman Ma Wei-kuo (馬瑋國) said.
During the visit, the first lady will attend a program at the Tokyo National Museum, Ma said, without giving any dates for her visit.
Photo: CNA
According to Vox Nativa, a non-profit organization that founded the Aboriginal children’s choir, the program at the Tokyo museum — a preview of new exhibits from the National Palace Museum — will take place on Monday next week.
The choir will give a performance during the preview, Vox Nativa said in a press release.
The group is to give a full concert on Friday and also perform on Sunday, the last day of an international children’s choral festival at Showa Women’s University in Tokyo.
Chow led the Vox Nativa children’s choir on a visit to San Francisco in July last year.
The first lady had planned to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition of National Palace Museum artifacts at the Tokyo National Museum on June 23, but her trip was canceled after some posters publicizing the exhibition failed to include the word “national” in the Taipei museum’s official title.
The Tokyo National Museum apologized and replaced the posters, which were ordered not by the museum, but by the exhibition’s media sponsors, but the measures were not taken in time for Chow to go ahead with the visit.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2