TOURISM
Tourism booming, Wu says
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday that the government would open tourism to independent Chinese visitors before July 1. Wu told a gathering of business leaders that more international tourists were visiting Taiwan. The number of foreign visitors has jumped from more than 3 million in 2008 to 5.56 million last year, and is expected to reach 6.5 million this year. Wu also boasted an increase in visitors from South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan during the first quarter of this year. Wu said passenger and cargo traffic at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport has grown tremendously in the past three years. Traffic volume at the airport used to be the lowest of the “Four Asian Tigers,” but it now boasts the highest figure among the four, he said.
SOCIETY
University’s donation arrives
The first NT$10 million (US$344,800) pledged by high-profile Chinese philanthropist Chen Guangbiao (陳光標) to a local university has arrived, the school announced yesterday. Shih Hsin University president Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘) said that during Chen’s visit to Taiwan early this year, he promised to donate NT$20 million to help impoverished students, after being briefed by Lai on the difficulties such students face and the school’s ideals. Chen pledged NT$20 million in funding, the second NT$10 million of which will be given next year. “We hope to use the donation to help poor students so they don’t have to take part-time jobs to support themselves and can focus instead on their studies,” Lai said. He also said that as far as he knew, Shih Hsin was the only school in Taiwan to have received a donation from Chen. The tycoon made a name for himself locally when he publicly handed out red envelopes to those who approached him.
TOURISM
Chi Chiao-tou celebrated
The annual Northern Bluefin Tuna Cultural and Sightseeing Festival hosted by the Pingtung County Government will include Chi Chiao-tou (7角頭) folk culture for the first time. The festival opened on May 4 and runs through July 3. The county government has designed a series of “wish cards” that highlight the cultural heritage of Chi Chiao-tou, which is the collective name of the seven neighborhoods in Donggang (東港), a township in the county that is famous for its bluefin tuna. Each neighborhood has its own temple and a group of folk art performers, who will participate in a triennial religious event called the “Prince Welcoming Ritual” at Donglong Temple next year. The county government has created a total of 110,000 wish cards in seven different colors, representing the uniforms that each performing group will wear during the ritual next year. The cards have been placed in the seven temples to boost tourism and promote folk culture.
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