Two Chinese asylum seekers who have been stuck at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for four months were allowed to enter Taiwan late on Wednesday.
Yan Kefen (顏克芬), 44, and Liu Xinglian (劉興聯), 64, entered Taiwan on the basis of “professional exchanges,” after they earlier that day exited the country by flying to an undisclosed location.
They were then picked up at the airport by friends and taken separately to prearranged accommodation. They now hope that the US or Canada will grant them asylum.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Yan and Liu on Sept. 27 last year arrived at the airport on a flight from Thailand and were scheduled to continue to Beijing, but did not get on the outbound flight.
They submitted a request for asylum on the grounds of political persecution in China, but could not provide any supporting evidence, the Mainland Affairs Council said.
The two were confined to a fourth-floor room at the airport.
Yan told the Central News Agency that life in the airport was “alright,” although he complained of stress and chest pain, as there was not enough room to move around.
“I haven’t slept in a real bed for a long time,” he said.
On Thursday last week, the council said that they could enter Taiwan on the basis of “professional exchanges” until they are granted asylum in a third nation, but would first have to exit and re-enter.
New School for Democracy board member Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) on Friday last week said that he was willing to act as guarantor for the two asylum seekers and that his decision was based solely on human rights considerations.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during