■TOURISM
Chinese flock to lake
Chinese nationals paid more than 600,000 visits to Sun Moon Lake last year, a six-fold rise over 2008 when Taiwan eased restrictions on tourists from China, the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration reported yesterday. Last year’s visitor number dwarfed the 93,790 Chinese who visited in 2008. Sun Moon Lake has long been listed as the favorite destination in Taiwan for Chinese tourists. The Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration added that the restaurant Thao Culture Park was found to be the most popular among Chinese visitors to Sun Moon Lake. The Thao, who have traditionally lived in the Sun Moon Lake area, have seen their numbers dwindle and are now the smallest officially recognized Aboriginal tribe in Taiwan.
■CHARITY
Crisis hits charity funds
The global economic crisis has resulted in revenue shortfalls for many charity organizations in Taiwan because of reduced donations. Small-change donations, however, defied the trend, and were nearly 26 percent higher last year, the non-profit United Way Taiwan said. A survey conducted by the organization of the country’s social welfare groups and charities late last year found that nearly 80 percent had suffered declines in funds over the past year — an average of 21 percent — United Way Taiwan Secretary-General Chou Wen-chen (周文珍) said. However, a collection drive last year generated more than NT$150 million (US$4.72 million) in change she said. The figure represented a year-on-year surge of 25.56 percent, Chou said. Of the total, most was collected in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas in the months after Typhoon Morakot struck in August, she said.
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