Taiwanese experts were yesterday abruptly blocked from attending the World Meteorological Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, reportedly due to Chinese pressure.
Weatherrisk Explore Inc (天氣風險管理開發) general manager Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) and Civil IoT Taiwan information platform convener Lu Chung-chin (呂忠津) were denied entry to the conference room that hosted the congress, which is held every four years, Civil IoT Taiwan wrote on Facebook. It began on Monday last week and runs through Friday.
Peng and Lu had earlier this week joined the meeting as civic observers, but their accreditation was abruptly canceled, it wrote, adding that it suspects that World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Assistant Secretary-General Zhang Wenjian (張文健) was behind the move.
Photo courtesy of Peng Chi-ming
“It is very uncomfortable to encounter such a situation on the spot in Geneva, just as a healthy person is suddenly told that he has cancer,” Peng wrote on Facebook on his way back to Taiwan.
He has Chinese friends working in the profession and they can respect each other’s values, Peng said, adding that he believes the “irrational move” was made by just a few people.
He wants to tell whoever is responsible that “although you have some power, you are losing people’s respect,” Peng wrote.
Taiwan’s representative office in Geneva had asked like-minded countries to express concern over a likely incident to the WMO, but the organization still succumbed to Beijing’s pressure, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
It condemned Beijing for impeding Taiwanese experts from participating in international exchanges in professional affairs and expressed regret over the WMO’s failure to stand firm.
The Chinese government has been imposing its fictitious “one China” principle on global organizations and businesses to the level of insanity, and does not even spare international cooperation in health, climate and disaster prevention, it said.
It would continue demanding that UN-affiliated agencies rectify their biased measures against Taiwanese, the ministry added.
Chinese obstructionism is increasingly felt in global meetings on atmospheric sciences, National Taiwan University Department of Atmospheric Sciences chair Lin Po-hsiung (林博雄) said.
He attended the WMO-backed Technical Conference on Meteorological and Environmental Instruments and Methods of Observation in Belgium in 2012, but did not sign up for its last year’s edition, as Taiwan’s country code has disappeared from its application system, so he only sat in on some speeches, instead of attending as a Chinese, he said.
Taiwan has been filing its weather data with WMO’s Global Telecommunication System through an information exchange center in Tokyo, instead of Beijing, he said.
Information gathered through the Formosat-3 and Formosat-7 satellite constellations — which are Taiwan-US collaborative programs — is processed through the US, he said.
Taiwan should continue working with the US or Europe in atmospheric observations, as well as promoting joint weather studies and disaster prevention with diplomatic allies and Southeast Asian countries, Lin said.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
DISPUTE: A Chinese official prompted a formal protest from Tokyo by saying that ‘the dirty head that sticks itself out must be cut off,’ after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks Four armed China Coast Guard vessels yesterday morning sailed through disputed waters controlled by Japan, amid a diplomatic spat following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan. The four ships sailed around the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) to Taiwan, and which Taiwan and China also claim — on Saturday before entering Japanese waters yesterday and left, the Japan Coast Guard said. The China Coast Guard said in a statement that it carried out a “rights enforcement patrol” through the waters and that it was a lawful operation. As of the end of last month,
RSS