Taiwan Premier Yu Shyi-kun said on Saturday that he has asked the Economic Affairs Ministry to study Honduras' request for US$500 million in aid to build hydroelectric plants.
At a news conference at the end of his trip to three Taiwan diplomatic allies, Yu told a reporters that the aid request has put the government on the spot, as Beijing is trying to woo Honduras by offering the aid.
Yu, who visited Honduras Aug. 17-19, said Honduran President Ricardo Maduro made the request during their meeting in Tegucigalpa on Aug. 18 and said that China, in an effort to isolate Taiwan in the international community, has offered to build three dams and hydroelectric stations in Honduras at a cost of US$500 million.
The premier said China is trying to put to good use its engineering personnel and experience accumulated in building the Three Gorges Dam and hydroelectric stations, and Honduras is eager to ease its electricity shortage by tapping the power of its rivers.
Beijing recently sent two delegations to Honduras to explore the possibility of cooperation, Yu said.
Taiwan economic affairs Minister Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), who accompanied Yu on the trip, told reporters that Taiwan's state-run Taiwan Power Co, which has helped Honduras in developing power stations over the last 27 years, will explore the possibility of investing in Honduras.
Small hydroelectric plants are generally unprofitable, Ho said, adding that the question of whether a large hydroelectric plant selling electricity to neighboring states is feasible in Honduras needs to be studied further by the company.
Before arriving in Managua on Aug. 19, Yu had already visited the Dominican Republic and Honduras.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods