The main problem holding up Taiwan’s inclusion in the US’ visa-waiver program has to do with the status of overseas Taiwanese, but the issue would be resolved within three months, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Bruce Linghu (令狐榮達), director-general of the Department of North American Affairs, said it was a “technical problem” that could be sorted out in “two to three months.”
Taiwan and the US have been negotiating on whether to extend the visa-free privilege to Republic of China (ROC) nationals who do not have household registration in Taiwan.
Some overseas-born Taiwanese are entitled to ROC passports and diplomatic protection, but do not have household registration in Taiwan. They are not permitted to vote in Taiwan and are exempt from compulsory military service.
“This is not a new problem,” Linghu said, adding that it had come up in the past in talks with the 127 countries or territories that have visa-waiver agreements with Taiwan.
The ministry is working with other government agencies, such as the National Immigration Agency, to sort out the problem, he said.
Taiwan has already met several requirements for the US program, such as a visa refusal rate of less than 3 percent, he said.
Taiwan’s chances of gaining admission to the program are “very positive” and it should happen “sometime in the fourth quarter,” Linghu said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching