The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in New York on Friday issued its 1,000th Republic of China (ROC) passport embedded with an integrated circuit (IC) chip, a milestone in a program instituted by Taiwan last year to crack down on forged passports, an official said.
Kenneth Liao (廖港民), head of the TECO New York office, reiterated that objective as he handed the 1,000th IC passport to its applicant.
He also expressed the hope that the US, which he described as one of Taiwan’s best foreign friends, would allow visa-free treatment for Taiwanese passport holders.
Ireland recently announced that starting on Wednesday Taiwanese citizens visiting Ireland for non-employment purposes such as tourism, business and family visits would be able to enter the country without a visa for a maximum stay of 90 days.
Liao attributed the decision, which followed a similar concession by the UK in March, to Taiwan’s introduction on Dec. 29 of its new anti-fraud IC passport.
If Washington decides to offer visa-free treatment to the large number of Taiwanese who travel to the US every year, it would not only allow greater convenience, but also symbolize the close friendship and mutual trust that exist between the US and Taiwan, he said.
Taiwan began issuing electronic passports late last year as part of efforts to prevent human-smuggling rings from using the stolen identities of Taiwanese children to apply for ROC passports through “legal channels.”
Taiwan hopes the enhanced security of its passports will convince the US to offer visa-free treatment to Taiwanese citizens.
Taiwanese passport holders are allowed visa-free entry to some countries, including Japan, South Korea and Singapore, for visits of up to 30 days.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift