The US has identified renewable energy as a priority for the APEC summit next year and will continue to count on Taiwan’s support in its planned initiatives to deliver sustainability, the US State Department’s senior official for APEC affairs Robert Wang said in Washington yesterday.
Wang was scheduled to fly to China yesterday to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting on Monday and Tuesday to discuss priorities for the APEC summit in Beijing next year with his counterparts from the other 20 APEC economies.
“We are looking at, among other things, energy, security and the environment,” although the US is primarily “in a listening mood” to try to see what China wants, Wang said when asked about the US’ priorities for the summit during a discussion with reporters.
The US, in conjunction with Brunei and Indonesia, launched the US-Asia Pacific Comprehensive Energy Partnership at the Seventh East Asia Summit last year, in which the US provides up to US$6 billion to encourage US companies to develop clean and renewable energy in Asia as part of US President Barack Obama’s plan to address climate change issues.
This year, Vietnam cochairs the partnership with Singapore. It hopes to identify clean and renewable energy projects, said Wang, who is to fly from China to Vietnam, where a US-sponsored technical assistance effort for a wind-power grid code is being undertaken by GE Energy Consulting and the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam to study the integration of large-scale wind energy to Vietnam’s power grid.
The area of energy security on the one hand and caring for the environment on the other hand is high on the Obama administration’s agenda, Wang said.
“We are hoping maybe to use this [2014] APEC year to try to make some progress, on, for example, fossil fuel subsidies reform to encourage countries to move away from inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that create problems for air pollution and climate change and to move towards clean and renewable energy,” Wang said.
The US hopes to get more countries to undergo peer review of fossil-fuel subsidies reform next year, including China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, he said.
Singapore and the Philippines have already done away with fossil fuel subsidies, while Peru and New Zealand last month proposed a voluntary peer review process for fossil-fuel subsidies reform, which will be implemented next year, Wang said.
Asked about the role of Taiwan in cooperation with the US in this area, Wang said “we are hoping to get Taiwan to support the various initiatives we have in energy and environment, whether in terms of financing or in terms of fossil fuel reforms. We hope that Taiwan can contribute to these efforts.”
Wang has scheduled a meeting in Beijing with Taiwanese officials tomorrow morning, the first of a number of bilateral meetings with his APEC counterparts.
“We have a whole range of things we are working with Taiwan on, [but] I am not sure if energy would be the key topic for Taiwan ... we hope that Taiwan will also be glad to do something in this area, certainly in terms of financing a clean energy project,” Wang said.
Wang praised Taiwan for helping APEC to deliver the goal of inclusive and sustainable growth with its APEC Digital Opportunity Center, through which a wide network of training centers were set up in remote areas of many APEC economies to help people become more computer literate.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
‘SAME OLD TRICK’: Even if Beijing resumes individual travel to Taiwan, it would only benefit Chinese tourism companies, the Economic Democracy Union convener said China’s 10 new “incentives” are “sugar-coated poison,” an official said yesterday, adding that Taiwanese businesses see them clearly for what they are, but that Beijing would inevitably find some local collaborators to try to drums up support. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, made the remark ahead of a news conference the General Chamber of Commerce is to hold today. The event, titled “Industry Perspectives on China’s Recent Pro-Taiwan Policies,” is expected to include representatives from industry associations — such as those in travel, hotels, food and agriculture — to request the government cooperate with China’s new measures, people familiar with
RSS