The Presidential Office yesterday dismissed speculation that the country’s diplomatic ties with Honduras were shaky as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) prepares to visit the country one day later than scheduled.
Saying that arrangements for Ma’s visit were still being made, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) added that Ma would likely stay in Panama for one more day because Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya may still be out of the country the day Ma had originally planned to arrive, despite Zelaya’s pledge that he would have returned by then.
“To avoid any misunderstandings, we decided to stay in Panama for one more day,” Wang said, dismissing speculation that the decision stemmed from unfriendly moves by Tegucigalpa toward Taiwan.
Wang said Taiwan’s relationship with its ally was sound and that both sides had fully cooperated during negotiations.
It has been widely reported that Tegucigalpa is unhappy with Ma’s foreign aid policy. Some local media have speculated that Ma had planned to visit Honduras during his last state visit to Central America earlier this month, but decided to postpone it.
When Ma met Zelaya earlier this month in El Salvador, Ma said he would stop providing more funding to Honduras for the construction of a hydraulic power plant and instead offer technical support while letting the Honduran government raise the remainder of the money on its own.
Ma will make state visits to three Central American countries later this month. The main purpose of the trip is to attend the inauguration of Panamanian president-elect Ricardo Martinelli on Wednesday.
The 169-person delegation will depart on Monday and return on July 8, with transfer stops in San Francisco on the way there and in Honolulu on the way back. The trip will also take Ma to Nicaragua and Honduras.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
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