President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen will be the first Taiwanese president to visit the nation's diplomatic allies in the South Pacific.
According to the itinerary unveiled by the Presidential Office, Chen will meet with Palauan President Tommy Remengesau shortly after his arrival on the afternoon of Jan. 27. Later, he will address the Palauan Parliament and host a dinner in honor of Taiwanese expatriates there.
The following day, he will first attend Remengesau's inauguration for a second term, after which Remengesau will captain a yacht to take Chen on a leisure voyage that will include a visit to a "dolphin park." In the evening, Chen will attend Remengesau's inaugural dinner party.
Chen will leave Palau for the Solomon Islands Jan. 29. That evening, he will view a qualifying match for the 2006 Oceania Youth Football Championship in the company of the Solomon Islands prime minister and will then attend a welcome dinner in his honor.
On Jan. 30, he will meet with an Taiwan agricultural mission stationed in the Solomon Islands, attend the inaugural ceremony for a Taiwan-donated hospital and visit a children's hospital. In the afternoon, he will give interviews to the media, and he will host a "thank you" dinner in honor of Solomon Islands officials, staff of the Taiwanese Embassy and the agricultural mission.
Chen will meet with Solomon Islands Governor-General Nathaniel Waena on Jan. 31, deliver a speech at the country's parliament and sign a joint communique before leaving for home. Chen will also make a five-hour transit stop in the US territory of Guam, where he will meet with the administrative leader and other political figures. He will also attend a dinner hosted by Taiwan expatriates in his honor before leaving for home.
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