DIPLOMACY
Sister city ties eyed
Washington has offered to forge sister city ties with Taipei, the Taipei City Government said in a statement yesterday. The proposal was raised the previous day by Washington Mayor Vincent Gray during a visit to the US capital by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌). Hau readily accepted the offer and said the two sides would realize the arrangement very soon, the statement said. Hau also invited Gray to visit Taipei in the hope that relations between the cities would be deepened through such exchanges. Hau arrived in the US capital on Wednesday on a four-day visit, part of a three-nation tour that will also take him to Nicaragua and Panama. The main purpose of the trip is to attend the 55th Sister Cities International Annual Conference being held March 3 to March 5 in Arlington, Virginia and to strengthen Taipei’s friendship with its sister cities in the US and Central America, the statement said.
SOCIETY
People receiving aid up 17%
The number of people in the country who received government aid last year stood at 188,433, representing 17 percent growth compared with the previous year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The ministry attributed the growth to a 2009 amendment to the act that governs the government’s relief for women in special circumstances, including domestic violence victims and single mothers who lost their jobs or were too sick to raise their children. Under the amendment, the act was expanded to cover “families in special circumstances,” so that men in similar circumstances were included. According to ministry data, the ministry released NT$478.6 million (US$16.3 million) of relief subsidies last year.
TOURISM
Japan-Taiwan ties upgraded
In a gesture of upgrading the importance of Japan-Taiwan tourism exchanges, the Interchange Association, Japan (IAJ) will take over the assignment from a private entity starting on April 1. The private Japan Tourist Association’s Taiwan Office will come to an end on March 31 and the IAJ, Japan’s representative office in Taipei, will be in charge of all related activities the next day, said Toshinobu Ikubo, head of the association’s Taiwan office. According to Ikubo, the change is part of Tokyo’s policy of giving tourists a one-stop service location for planning their vacations to Japan. This change can be viewed as an upgrade in bilateral tourism activities between the two countries, as well as the Japanese government’s renewed priority toward attracting tourists from Taiwan. The private office had set a goal of attracting 1.5 million Taiwanese visitors to Japan this year, a goal that will be adopted by the IAJ.
CULTURE
NPM construction date set
Construction of the southern branch of the National Palace Museum (NPM) will start in January 2013 and the branch will open on a trial basis upon completion, which is scheduled for 2015, the museum said. The first stage of the project will involve construction of the main buildings and general landscaping, the museum said. It was decided in 2004 that a branch would be established in Chiayi County, with the aim of showcasing Asian arts and cultures. However, major revisions were subsequently made to the details of the project and they were not finalized until last October when the Cabinet approved the changes, according to a statement issued by the museum.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard