Tougher rules on UK visa applications that take effect today will not affect Taiwanese students wishing to study in the UK, the UK representative office in Taipei and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
The new rules require that applicants have a General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in a foreign language or its equivalent to study in the UK and that they take courses to improve their English language competency once they enter the UK. The rules also cut in half the amount of time a student studying below the first degree level will be able to work in the UK to just 10 hours per week during each school term. The rule change was made because British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had requested a review of student visa requirements in November to prevent abuse of the system.
British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) Director David Campbell said the new rules should not have a negative impact on Taiwanese students.
“These changes are aimed at reducing immigration abuse and should not affect anyone who is studying at a reputable educational establishment,” Campbell said.
Campbell also said the rules did not change the fact that Taiwanese students do not need visas to take short courses (less than six months) in the UK.
BTCO is the UK’s representative office in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also does not expect the new measure to negatively impact the number of Taiwanese students hoping to study in the UK, Department of European Affairs Director-General Chiu Jong-jen (邱仲仁) said.
Currently, there are more than 15,000 Taiwanese students studying in the UK, Chiu said.
Eliza Lee, marketing and communications manager at the British Council, the UK’s international cultural relations organization, said the measures were targeted at students from India, Pakistan and other countries who go to the UK to work rather than study.
Also See: Schengen visa-waiver may be ‘delayed’
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