Chinese authorities are to begin issuing new electronic “Taiwan compatriot travel document” (台胞證) cards to Taiwanese visitors today, replacing paper passes.
Though Chinese officials insist the measure is to facilitate cross-strait relations, Taiwanese academics expressed concern over privacy issues and national defense.
Beijing said on Tuesday that Taiwanese travelers can apply to its public security departments above the county level and hand in paper travel passes to obtain the computer-readable cards.
The move follows China’s introduction in July of permit-free treatment for Taiwanese visitors, which removed the need for an entry permit — similar to a visa — and in their place implemented an IC card for automatic entry.
Critics claim that the change is tantamount to downgrading the Taiwanese travel document’s legal status to the equivalent of the “Hong Kong and Macau resident travel permit to enter the neidi” (港澳居民來往內地通行證), also known as “home visit permits” (回鄉證), issued to Hong Kong and Macau residents.
During a visit in July to the US, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said China’s unilateral decision to adopt the new IC card at such short notice showed disrespect to the nation.
He said Beijing should pay close attention to the opinions of Taiwanese on controversial issues such as China’s M503 air route, which closely follows the median line of the Taiwan Strait, as well as the introduction of the IC cards.
During another visit to Washington last month, Hsia repeated his concerns, saying several recent moves by China, including the IC card system and the use of an apparent replica of the Presidential Office Building in a military exercise by the People’s Liberation Army, were “very disrespectful.”
National Chung Hsing University professor of international relations Tsai Tung-chieh (蔡東杰) said that China is acting unilaterally because it has concluded from recent experience that it cannot rely on Taiwan’s cooperation to push forward cross-strait relations.
“Therefore, it resolved not to wait for the government’s assent,” Tsai said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS