Nearly 700 heads of states, diplomats and foreign dignitaries from 59 countries around the world are to attend president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
At a routine news conference yesterday morning, ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said the 59 include Taiwan’s 22 diplomatic allies and 37 that do not have formal ties with Taipei.
“From my understanding, the number of foreign dignitaries attending Tsai’s inauguration ceremony surpasses those in previous years,” Wang said.
Photo: CNA
She said the invitation process this year went “very smoothly.”
The ministry said the US delegation is to be led by former US trade representative Ron Kirk, who is to be accompanied by former US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte, former US Department of State deputy spokesman Alan Romberg, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt and AIT Director Kin Moy.
The Holy See — the nation’s only European diplomatic ally — is sticking with precedent and sending its Apostolic Nuncio to Japan, Archbishop Joseph Chennoth.
Photo: CNA
Chennoth and Vatican’s charge d’affaires ad interim to Taiwan, Monsignor Sladan Cosic, are also to attend Tsai’s state banquet tonight at Taipei’s Marriott Hotel.
Eighteen delegations from other European nations, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Slovakia and Hungary, have arrived for a total of 48 people.
One delegation, led by European Parliament-Taiwan Friendship Group vice chairman Dominique Riquet, includes former Dutch prime minister Andreas van Agt, former Slovakian prime minister Iveta Radicova and All-Party Parliamentary British-Taiwanese Group co-chairman Lord Faulkner of Worcester.
As for Japan, a delegation of 252 people arrived in Taipei on Wednesday, including Interchange Association, Japan President Tadashi Imai, as well as chief executive and vice chairman of the Japan-Republic of China (ROC) Diet Members’ Consultative Council, Furuya Keiji and Eto Seishiro.
The leaders of Taiwan’s six Asia-Pacific allies are attending: Marshallese President Hilda Heine, Nauruan President Baron Waqa, Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga, Palauan President Tommy Remengesau, Solomon Islands Governor General Frank Ofagioro Kabui and Kiribati President Taneti Maamau.
Other Asian-Pacific states, including South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and India, have all sent delegates to the event.
Leaders and high-level officials of the nation’s diplomatic allies in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean will also attend the ceremony, including Swazi King Mswati III, Burkinabe Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thieba, Sao Tomean Minister of Foreign Affairs Manuel Salvador dos Ramos, Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes, Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Timothy Harris, Nicaraguan Vice President Moises Omar Halleslevens Acevedo, as well as the deputy prime ministers of Belize and Saint Vincent, and the legislative speaker of Saint Lucian.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez is not able to attend Tsai’s inauguration ceremony as planned due to “internal affairs.”
Instead, he has sent Honduran Supreme Court President Rolando Edgardo Argueta Perez, said Miguel Tsao (曹立傑), director-general of the ministry’s Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
COMPLIANCE: The SEF has helped more than 3,900 Chinese verify documents, indicating that most of those affected are willing to cooperate, the MAC said More than 3,100 spouses from China have submitted proof of renunciation of their Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The National Immigration Agency has since April issued notices to spouses to submit proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration on or before June 30 or their Taiwanese household registration would be revoked. People having difficulties obtaining such a document can request an extension of the deadline or submit a written affidavit in lieu of it. The council said it would hold a briefing at 2:30pm on Friday at the immigration agency’s Taichung office in cooperation with the
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
RSS