■ CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Trio heading for Antarctica
Taiwan and China will cooperate on research in Antarctica for the first time, as three Taiwanese biologists join a Chinese team for periods ranging up to three months, said Wang Wei-hsien (王維賢), director of the Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. One of the trio will board the Chinese icebreaker and research vessel Xue Long, which is due to set off from Shanghai on Sunday, carrying 251 researchers. The other two Taiwanese will join the team later. The Taiwanese will study organic pollution and marine organisms during their stay. “Taiwanese researchers haven’t set foot on Antarctica for decades. This will be a whole new experience for us,” Wang said. Taiwan and China agreed to join hands when Xue Long made its high-profile maiden voyage to Taiwan in April on the way back from its 25th mission to Antarctica.
Some 2,000 people visited the ship while it was anchored in Kaohsiung.
■ LABOR
TIWA seeks rally mascot
The Taiwan International Workers Association (TIWA) is seeking submissions of a “tired robot” mascot to be used as the symbol of this year’s immigrant workers’ parade in December. The group said a “tired robot” was the perfect symbol because many Taiwanese employers treat their migrant workers as “machines” rather than humans — forcing many of them to work seven days a week and rarely giving them days off, the TIWA said in a statement. “However, even robots would get exhausted from working non-stop, so why wouldn’t humans?” the group said. The TIWA has been holding parades in support of immigrant workers’ rights since 2005. Those interested in submitting a design can e-mail it to tiwa@tiwa.org.tw before Oct. 31. More information about the design contest can be found at www.tiwa.org.tw.
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