The Tourism Bureau is investigating an incident in which two tour bus drivers in Taitung County allegedly hit a woman from China on Wednesday amid an argument about her unwillingness to buy merchandise from travel agency-affiliated shops.
A TV news reported earlier on Thursday that the bus drivers were upset because the tourist had not bought anything at shopping centers along the tour route and dissuaded other tourists from making purchases, depriving the drivers and their company of commissions.
Tourism Bureau Deputy Director Chang Hsi-tsung (張錫聰) said his initial understanding was that the alleged incident resulted from an argument between the bus drivers and the woman over her frequent requests to leave the tour group since arriving in Taiwan last Saturday.
Chinese visitors in tour groups are permitted to leave the group for only one-third of their time in Taiwan and are required to provide the telephone number of a local contact when they do so, he said.
Chang said the woman and the two bus drivers got into an argument in front of a convenience store by a hotel when the drivers were discussing her bad manners. The drivers allegedly began hitting her on the head, witnesses said.
Chang said their alleged actions could constitute a criminal offense and that the bureau would look into whether the local tour guide reported the matter to the police immediately after it occurred.
Taitung County Government Tourism Department Director-General Chen Shu-Hui (陳淑慧) said each of the 15-member group was charged less than NT$20,000 (US$665) for the eight-day trip and were expected to shop at designated stores.
Chen said the woman reported her case to Taitung police and said she would file a lawsuit against the drivers who allegedly hit her.
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