Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) has departed for Washington to attend a memorial service for US Senator John McCain on behalf of the government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Su is to attend two events in Washington for the long-time friend and supporter of Taiwan, accompanied by Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰), the ministry said in a news release.
Su is to attend the lying-in-state ceremony at the US Capitol today and a national memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral tomorrow, the ministry said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
He is scheduled to return to Taipei on Monday, it said.
Su traveled at the invitation of the organizers of the events, who are members of the US Congress, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said.
“It is therefore befitting for the government to send Su to attend the memorial events and to say goodbye to a long-time friend of Taiwan on behalf of the government,” Lee said, adding that Su would convey President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) condolences to McCain’s family.
McCain passed away at age 81 on Saturday last week after a battle with brain cancer.
Tsai on Sunday expressed her deepest sympathy and condolences to the McCain family.
“I’ll remember John McCain as a friend & a fighter. He never backed down from his beliefs & forever strived for a more peaceful & prosperous world. On behalf of the people of Taiwan, thank you,” Tsai wrote on Twitter.
McCain was highly regarded by many in US politics and he shared a deep bond with Taiwan, endorsing many bills in Congress as concrete actions to support the nation and defend democracy around the world, Tsai said in a news release.
For the people of Taiwan, McCain’s death was “a great loss of an important friend of Taiwan” in the US, she said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS