President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and FBI Associate Deputy Director Paul Abbate yesterday opened a one-week FBI training program for senior law enforcement officers in the region, a course held in Taiwan for the first time.
The choice of Taiwan was “a testament to the nation’s importance to rule of law in the international community,” Tsai said at the launch of the FBI National Academy’s 22nd Asia-Pacific Chapter Conference.
“Taiwan is committed to achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” she said. “We are working with like-minded partners throughout the world to make the region a safer and more prosperous place.”
Photo: CNA
Taiwan has signed memorandums of understanding on law enforcement with the US, the Philippines, Nauru and Palau, she said, adding that Taiwan’s intelligence-sharing networks stretch across East and Southeast Asia.
As a reliable partner and a force for good in the world, Taiwan is committed to combating international crime, she added.
Abbate told the conference that the FBI’s vision for the Indo-Pacific region excludes no one.
“We seek to partner with all law enforcement agencies that respect national sovereignty, fairness and the rule of law,” he said. “Our goal is for all nations to live in prosperity, security and liberty.”
Law enforcement must ensure that each country in the Asia-Pacific region is free to determine its own course, “even the smallest country,” said Abbate, the highest-ranking FBI official to ever visit Taiwan in an official capacity.
American Institute in Taiwan Deputy Director Raymond Greene said in his speech that despite Taiwan’s many contributions to the global community, it unfortunately is excluded from international bodies such as the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
“In this interconnected world, Taiwan’s absence not only harms its 23 million people, but also increases risks to all countries,” he said.
That is why Taiwan’s participation in the FBI academy network is important to the world’s collective safety and security, Greene said.
This week’s conference in Taipei, which has about 170 participants from more than 20 nations, is a follow-up program for law enforcement officers who have participated in a 10-week course usually held in the US.
Officers from the Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency have taken the course in the US since 1961, with about 36 of them graduating from the program, the Ministry of Justice said.
The FBI National Academy says it has trained more than 50,000 officers from around the world since launching its 10-week program in 1935.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS