Former US president Bill Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Taipei this evening on a private jet for a whirlwind visit of less than 24 hours, during which he will deliver a speech, meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and visit the Taipei International Flora Expo.
In his sixth visit to Taiwan, or the second time after retiring from his eight-year presidency in 2000, Clinton will mark the first time a former US president is visiting Taiwan during Ma’s term.
Clinton is scheduled to meet with Ma this evening at the Taipei International Conference Center (TICC), the first event in his itinerary after his arrival, sources said.
According to the organizer of the speech event, a subsidiary company of the Singapore-based Universal Network Intelligence (UNI), Clinton will predict the economic performance of the country and its economic direction beyond this year in his speech.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) will give an opening remark to welcome Clinton before his 40-minute speech, followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer session.
Prior to his Taiwan visit, Clinton made stops in Singapore and the Philippines’ where he delivered a speech under the topic of “Embracing Our Common Humanity.”
Clinton’s visiting entourage is composed of about 20 people, including about 10 US entrepreneurs of various businesses, UNI said.
Sources said that Clinton would visit the flora expo, including the US pavilion located in the Global Garden Area at the Yuanshan Park Area, tomorrow morning before he wraps up his trip in Taiwan at around noon.
As of yesterday, a meeting between Clinton and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had not been arranged, DPP sources said.
Tickets to attend Clinton’s speech cost from NT$1,800 to NT$250,000.
UNI said that 10 percent of the ticket revenue will be donated to the William J. Clinton Foundation, which was established by Clinton with the stated mission to strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence.
Clinton’s most recent trip to Taiwan was in February 2005, during which he met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP as well as then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and attended a book-signing event for his autobiography, My Life.

The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of

Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading

‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to