Congratulations from foreign governments poured in after Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party won Saturday’s presidential election by a landslide.
The White House offered its congratulations to the president-elect and said the US “maintain[s] a profound interest in the continuation of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
“The United States congratulates Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on her victory in Taiwan’s presidential election. We also congratulate the people of Taiwan for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system,” White House National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins said.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida on Saturday wrote on the ministry Web site that Taiwan is an important partner and friend to Japan and they share fundamental values, have close economic relations and engage in personnel exchanges.
“Based on maintaining non-official and pragmatic relations with Taiwan, the Japanese government hopes the bilateral cooperation and exchanges can be deepened,” Kishida wrote.
The European Parliament Taiwan Friendship Group also issued a statement to congratulate Tsai on her election.
“The outcome of the election shows that Taiwan has become a mature and stable democracy which respects multiparty pluralist democracy,” it said.
Philippine representative in Taiwan Antonio Basilio congratulated Tsai in a statement yesterday and expressed hope that bilateral ties will advance to boost peace and stability in the region.
Nauruan President Baron Waqa also sent a congratulatory message to Tsai yesterday, saying Nauru looks forward to further improving bilateral ties and expressed gratitude for the assistance that Taiwan has provided to his nation.
A Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman congratulated Tsai, saying, “as a longstanding friend, Singapore looks forward to maintaining our close relations and cooperation with Taiwan based on our consistent ‘one China’ policy.”
“Singapore supports the peaceful development of cross-strait relations. We hope that both sides will build on the hard-earned achievements over the last few years and continue to engage in dialogue and mutually-beneficial cooperation for the benefit of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” the spokesman said.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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