Despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) recent campaign promoting the Republic of China (ROC) national flag, it was nowhere to be seen yesterday at the Grand Hotel, where high-level cross-strait talks are being held.
Explaining the lack of a flag, Grand Hotel’s public relations office manager Yu Li-ying (俞利英) said yesterday that the hotel flies the national flag on only two occasions.
One is on Oct. 10, when the nation celebrates National Day, the other is the New Year on Jan. 1, she said.
In accordance with international protocol, they would also fly the national flag along with that of the visiting country if the national leader of that country stays at the hotel, she said.
The MAC has been running newspaper advertisements and TV spots in the run-up to the meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), which began in Taipei yesterday.
The MAC campaign used the tag line: “Wherever the national flag is customarily located, [it should] remain there.”
In a bid to ensure that Chen understands the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government will not change its position on the national flag to accommodate his visit, MAC officials said television commercials and newspaper advertisements will run through Friday, two days after Chen leaves.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
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Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
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