TRAVEL
Tainan seeks China flights
Greater Tainan is expected to become the ninth destination in Taiwan to provide cross-Taiwan Strait air routes amid growing demand for air travel between Taiwan and China, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said yesterday. According to the administration, it will suggest in the coming round of cross-strait aviation negotiations set for June that the city be allowed to establish direct air links with destinations in China. Tainan Airport will soon be able to handle both cross-strait and international flights after the Executive Yuan grants approval, the administration said. At present, Tainan Airport offers a total of two flights to Kinmen Island and three to Penghu Island each day. Neighboring Chiayi County and Matsu Island are also seeking to establish direct air links with China, the administration added. Currently, 37 airports in China serve cross-strait routes, compared with eight in Taiwan.
ENVIRONMENT
Reservoirs show no radiation
Water in the nation’s reservoirs and water treatment plants has not been found to be contaminated with radioactive substances, the Water Resources Agency said on Friday. An agency official said a total of 54 water samples collected during the week prior to Wednesday were found to be free of contamination. The agency has conducted weekly tests on the country’s drinking water and water sources since March 22, after a nuclear power plant in Japan suffered a series of major meltdowns triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, the official said. Concerns have been raised that radioactive materials released into the air by the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant could blow toward Taiwan and affect the country’s food and water supply.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Guangxi delegation arrives
A delegation from China’s Guangxi Province arrived in Hualien yesterday, beginning a four-day visit to buy agricultural products. The delegation, led by Ma Biao (馬飆), chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is aimed at facilitating cooperation between the Chinese province and Hualien, Ma said. Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), along with other representatives from the county government, met the Guangxi delegation at Hualien Airport after they arrived from Nanning, the capital of Guangxi. The leader of the delegation said he hoped his group would be successful in its attempt to buy agricultural products, such as tea and clam essence, from the county.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Banking delegation arrives
China’s top banking regulator arrived in Taipei yesterday to discuss cross-strait collaboration on financial supervision. China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang (劉明康) is heading the delegation of senior financial supervisory officials on his first visit to Taiwan. During his visit, Liu will co-chair a meeting tomorrow with his Taiwanese counterpart, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Chen Yu-chang (陳裕璋), on cross-strait collaboration regarding the regulation of banking operations. The conference, the first at this level since a memorandum of understanding on cross-strait financial supervision took effect on Jan. 16 last year, will serve as a platform for the two bodies to hold a regular dialogue and communicated about oversight of banking operations in each other’s countries, the FSC 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