For Tsai Jo-shih (
"I had never imagined the word `Taiwan' on the passport would be so useful," Tsai said upon retrieving his confiscated passport and visa fee after the Taiwanese embassy intervened on his behalf on Wednesday.
The misunderstanding arose when Tsai handed customs officials his Taiwanese passport, issued in 2001, to enter St. Lucia during the Taiwan Bird Observation Team's visit to the country.
PHOTO: CHENG HSU-KAI, TAIPEI TIMES
The team, of which Tsai is a member, was commissioned to help St. Lucia investigate, observe and establish a database for its bird population.
The new version of the Taiwanese passport, with the name "Taiwan" on the cover, started being issued on Sept. 1, 2003.
Mistaking Tsai's old passport for a Chinese one, St. Lucia immigration officers confiscated his passport and asked him to pay the US$50 visa fee.
Taiwanese Ambassador to St. Lucia Tom Chou (
Many people cannot tell Taiwan from China, he said.
"Adding `Taiwan' on the cover of the passport is the right policy and it would have solved the problem in this case," Chou said.
Team leader Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), who is also a Democratic Progressive Party legislator, said that Chinese passport holders are often questioned at customs and have to go through stricter security checks because of the great number of Chinese human smugglers.
St. Lucia first established diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1984, before switching diplomatic recognition to China.
It restored diplomatic relations with Taiwan on April 26. On April 30, St. Lucia Minister of Foreign Affairs Rufus Bousquet and his Taiwanese counterpart, James Huang (黃志芳), signed a joint communique on restoring ties between the two countries in Castries.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
‘RELIABLE PARTNER’: US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar praised the ‘Taiwan model,’ saying that the nation brought its spirit to its COVID-19 response The first memorandum of understanding (MOU) on health cooperation between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the US Department of Health and Human Services was yesterday signed at the Centers for Disease Control in Taipei. The memorandum was signed between the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, by AIT Director Brent Christensen and Taiwan Council for US Affairs Chairperson Jen-ni Yang (楊珍妮). US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) witnessed the signing of the memorandum, designed to enhance the nations’
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday tweeted a welcome to Somaliland’s first representative to Taiwan, Mohamed Omar Hagi Mohamoud, who arrived on Friday. Mohamoud had “braved Chinese pressure” to take up his new post, Wu wrote. “The fact ‘sovereignty & friendship aren’t for sale’ deserves international recognition,” referring to a Somaliland media report earlier this month that Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi had rejected an offer by the Chinese government in exchange for ending its rapprochement with Taiwan. Wu also thanked the US National Security Council (NSC) for praising Taiwan-Somaliland ties. A council tweet on July 10 praised Taiwan
The Taipei City Government yesterday said that construction on the long-suspended Taipei Dome can resume immediately, after it approved a request by the project’s main contractor, Farglory Group. In a statement, the Taipei Construction Management Office said that after it on July 16 issued a new building permit, Farglory submitted revised design plans and an application to resume construction, which the office approved on Friday. Construction had been suspended on the dome, near the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Xinyi District (信義), for more than five years due to disagreements between the city and the company over the safety of some of
RSS