Vice President Annette Lu (
Lu made the request while meeting with Kobsak Chutikul, a member of the Thai House of Representatives, and five lawmakers from other Asia-Pacific countries. The six lawmakers were in Taipei to attend an inter-parliamentary meeting on regional security and development.
Lu told Kobsak that she feels regret and pain over Thailand's visa snub to the mission, which had planned to leave for Bangkok on Sunday on the first leg of a three-nation visit aimed at reviewing the government's "go south" policy for business investment.
"I want to take this opportunity to express my ill feelings and I hope you can convey my regret to the relevant Thai authorities, " Lu said.
She said that businesspeople like investing in Thailand and that many Thai workers have offered devoted services to local companies and households.
Against this backdrop, Lu said, the two countries should strengthen exchanges and cooperation for their mutual benefit.
Kobsak told Lu that he was also dissatisfied with the refusal of his nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' decision to grant visas to the mission.
Kobsak said the Thai parliament has already asked the executive branch to give a detailed explanation of why it rejected the delegation's visa applications.
The 19-member delegation, headed by Legislative Yuan Vice Speaker Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤), canceled the Thai leg of its trip and will leave today for a six-day visit to Malaysia and the Philippines.
Asked whether the Council of Labor Affairs is likely to ban imports of Thai laborers in retaliation for the snub, Chairwoman Chen Chu (
If necessary, she said, the council will study the feasibility of a labor ban in order to protect national interests.
Meanwhile, Thailand called for understanding of its "one China" policy.
It also said the bitter dispute over the denial of visas was unlikely to affect the 120,000 Thais working in Taiwan.
"I hope Taiwan will understand our `one China' policy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phaungketkeow said.
"We try to avoid political contacts with Taiwan while keeping our trade and investment open. Taiwan should understand this," Sihasak said.
However, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (
Despite Taiwan's anger over the visa snub, Sihasak said the status of Thailand's large workforce in Taiwan was unlikely to change.
"I don't think [it will affect Thai workers in Taiwan] because both countries benefit from their presence," he said.
Since it came to office two years ago, the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been accused of pulling Thailand closer into China's political orbit and going overboard in its efforts to please Beijing.
Taiwan is the third-largest source of foreign investment for Thailand.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching