SOCIETY
Population grows to 23.35m
As of July 31, Taiwan’s population stood at 23.35 million, with 68.63 of people residing in the five special municipalities and Taoyuan County, which will be upgraded to a municipality next year, data from the Ministry of the Interior show. The data indicate that New Taipei City (新北市) is the most populous city, with 3.95 million residents. It is followed by Greater Kaohsiung (2.78 million), Greater Taichung (2.7 million), Taipei (2.68 million), Taoyuan County (2.04 million) and Greater Tainan (1.88 million). The total population grew 0.145 percent in the past year, slightly lower than the 0.187 percent rise seen in the previous year, the ministry said, attributing the drop to a decline in the number of newborns. The data also indicate a declining ratio of males to females. The ratio stood at 100.09 men for every 100 women at the end of last month, compared with the 100.38 to 100 ratio recorded the previous year. The ministry attributed the decline to several factors, including a higher death rate among men and a rise in the number of foreign spouses of Taiwanese men.
SOCIETY
APCS volunteers chosen
A team of 500 volunteers was established yesterday to help during the Asia-Pacific Cities Summit (APCS) to be held in Greater Kaohsiung next month. Greater Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) presented the official flag of the summit to the volunteers at an inaugural ceremony and encouraged the team, the majority of whom are young students who speak foreign languages, to show the municipality’s hospitality to the international guests. Volunteers are Greater Kaohsiung’s most powerful asset, Chen said, citing the 5,000 volunteers who worked at the 2009 World Games in the municipality. So far, more than 70 officials from Taiwan and abroad, including the Chinese cities of Tianjin, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Fuzhou, have agreed to head delegations at the event to share their experiences of urban development and the challenges they face, she said. The volunteers will offer translation services and administrative support during the summit, which will run from Sept. 9 to Sept. 11.
DIPLOMACY
Ma heads to St Kitts & Nevis
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was set to leave for Saint Kitts and Nevis yesterday in the final leg of his tour of five South American and Caribbean allies. Ma will be received by Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas upon arrival and will sign an extradition agreement with the Caribbean country. Ma is also scheduled to jog with young athletes, visit Taiwan’s diplomatic missions and inspect a solar energy power plant currently under construction before flying to Los Angeles for a transit stop. He is scheduled to return home on Thursday.
TRAVEL
Airport ranked 9th in Asia
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport took ninth place in a recent survey on Asia’s best airports released by leading hotel booking site Agoda.com. A total of 11,000 travelers who flew into 15 major capital cities in Asia were asked to give an overall rating on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) for airport facilities such as signage, food selection, leisure options and number of bathrooms. The Taoyuan airport, which handled 28 million passengers last year, was rated 3.38, only one spot behind Beijing Capital International Airport (3.48). Singapore’s Changi Airport topped the list with an overall rating of 4.37.
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