EDUCATION
Overseas students rise 60%
The number of overseas students coming to Taiwan to pursue degrees increased by 60 percent over the past three years, according to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Education. Overseas students refer to foreign students, overseas Chinese (including from Hong Kong and Macau) and students from mainland China. The number totaled 25,107 in 2011, and had increased to 40,078 as of last year. Taiwan began to open its doors wider to Chinese students in 2011, and a total of 5,881 Chinese studied for degrees in Taiwan last year, mostly in business management and engineering. The largest source of foreign students was Malaysia, followed by Vietnam and Indonesia.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
US passport deal signed
Taiwan and the US signed an agreement on Nov. 4 to share information about lost and stolen passports, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Eleanor Wang (王珮玲). The signing of the accord, which was the culmination of a series of efforts made by the two sides for more than a year, is aimed at bolstering security and combating crimes related to the illegal use of passports of the two nations, Wang said. Taiwan has not joined the International Criminal Police Organization and has no access to its Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database, Wang said, adding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been seeking to sign similar agreements with other countries, aiming at improving the integrity of the nation’s passports. Meanwhile, the American Institute in Taiwan said on its Facebook page that the signing of the agreement is an example of how the US and Taiwan continue to enhance the program to promote secure travel.
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