Naval vessels will be dispatched to escort a group of legislators on their planned visit to the disputed Diaoyutai islands, Ministry of National Defense spokeswoman Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) said yesterday.
The Navy was making plans for the proposed trip by a group of lawmakers from the legislature’s Diplomacy and National Defense Committee, led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁芳), Chi said.
Lin announced earlier that the trip — scheduled for tomorrow — will be aimed at “finding facts, claiming sovereignty and protecting the rights of Taiwanese fishing boats.”
It was still uncertain whether Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) would accompany the legislators on the trip, Chi said.
“Relevant details, such as the type of vessels, ministry personnel to be assigned to the mission, and whether the convoy will enter the disputed 12-nautical-mile [22km] zone around the Diaoyutais, are yet to be finalized,” Chi said.
The Diaoyutais have been at the center of a territorial dispute involving Japan, Taiwan and China for decades.
The waters around the island group have traditionally been a fishing ground for Taiwanese fishermen.
Lin said the legislators were determined to make the trip tomorrow, adding that “the decision will not be changed unless Japan apologizes and offers compensation.”
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