President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is scheduled to make his fourth trip abroad since entering office in May last year to attend a fall leadership summit between Taiwan and its South Pacific allies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
The summit will take place sometime between October and November.
This year’s meeting will be held in the Solomon Islands, where Ma visited once in 1997 when he was a professor at National Taiwan University, said Lee Tsung-fen (李宗芬), deputy director of the Department of East Asian Affairs.
All heads of state of Taiwan’s six allies in the region — Nauru, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau — are expected to attend the meeting, she said.
The main focus of this year’s meeting will be on countering the current economic contraction, climate change and how to strengthen the fisheries industry. Taiwan will also seek to forge partnerships with the allies on several long-term joint ventures, Lee said.
Lee said Ma developed a fondness for the Pacific region during his previous visit to the Solomon Islands when he saw a handful of children at a market selling betel nuts and watermelons while wearing shirts donated by the people of Taiwan.
If possible, the ministry will arrange for the president to visit one or two more allies during the visit, MOFA said.
This would be Ma’s fourth overseas trip as president. He is expected to go to Latin America for the third time later this month to attend the inauguration of Panamanian president-elect Ricardo Martinelli.
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) today released images of the military tracking China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) movements during the latest round of Chinese drills around Taiwan. The PLA began "Justice Mission 2025" drills today, carrying out live-fire drills, simulated strikes on land and maritime targets, and exercises to blockade the nation's main ports. The exercises are to continue tomorrow, with the PLA announcing sea and air space restrictions for five zones around Taiwan for 10 hours starting from 8:30am. The ministry today released images showing a Chinese J-16 fighter jet tracked by a F-16V Block 20 jet and the
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