The US' Amtrak apologized for listing Taiwan as a province of China on its online reservation Web site after protests from Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA).
Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corp, which operates most intercity passenger railroad routes in the US, corrected the mistake online and apologized for the misunderstanding,
According to the FAPA, in May a Taiwanese American in the US discovered that the Amtrak online reservations Web site had listed Taiwan as a province of China.
A group of Taiwanese Americans then filed complaints to Amtrak's customer service, but received no replies.
In July, the FAPA formally wrote a letter to David Gunn, president of the National Railroad Passenger Corp, and requested correction on this matter.
"`Province of China' should not be written after `Taiwan' since it is an incontestable reality that Taiwan is not a part of China," the FAPA letter said.
In the letter, the FAPA pointed out that in a 1996 memorandum, the US State Department stated that since the US has no diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, US officials need to refer to Taiwan as "Taiwan."
Amtrak was established by the US Congress and receives funding from the government, therefore, what they do should be in accordance with the rules set by the government, the letter said.
"I was informed that Amtrak takes no position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan and simply lists all countries around the world according to ISO 3166-1 provided by the International Organization for Standardization, which does not list Taiwan as a province of China", said Wu Ming-chi (
Amtrak officials responded 10 days after the FAPA letter was sent, saying that they would look into it and make corrections if there was indeed a mistake.
On Aug. 16, the FAPA office received a letter from Gunn, apologizing for the mistake.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS