HEALTHCARE
Kaohsiung to help homeless
The Kaohsiung City Government is to provide homeless people in the city with clothes, hot meals and sleeping bags so they can keep warm as the weather turns colder with the arrival of a cold air mass. Social workers and volunteers are being mobilized to go to areas frequented by the city’s homeless to ensure they receive the assistance the city government is offering, Kaohsiung social affairs officials said yesterday. Emergency measures to provide the homeless with shelter have also been activated, including opening service centers and negotiating with local hostels to provide accomodations, the officials said. A cold air mass was forecast to arrive in Taiwan last night, which was expected to push temperatures down to about 10°C tonight and early tomorrow in northern coastal areas, with temperatures of 14-15°C expected in south regions, the Central Weather Bureau said.
DIPLOMACY
MAC calls for Trump support
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday urged the incoming administration of US president-elect Donald Trump to support Taipei’s continued efforts to maintain cross-strait peace and reiterated that Taiwan should not be used as a bargaining chip in the relationship between the US and China. The government attaches great importance to Taiwan’s relations with the US and China, and remains consistent and firm on its policy of promoting cross-strait peace and stability, council Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said at a media briefing, when asked about Trump saying that he would negotiate the “one China” policy with Beijing after taking office. Taipei is committed to promoting a balanced relationship with the US and China and hopes that the new US government, on the basis of the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances,” will support Taiwan’s efforts to maintain cross-strait peace, Chiu said. He asked Washington to convey to Beijing the importance of mutual respect and communication with Taiwan and to urge Beijing to adopt a more rational and friendly attitude toward Taipei.
EDUCATION
University sets up think tank
National University of Kaohsiung on Wednesday announced that it had established a Southeast Asia development center, which is to serve as a think tank for the implementation of the government’s “new southbound policy.” The university decided to establish the center to consolidate the resources of the government, industrial and academic sectors to nurture Southeast Asia experts, in line with the “new southbound policy” that was initiated by President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration last year, university president Wang Shyue-liang (王學亮) said at the center’s opening ceremony. “The center will become a platform for cooperation among the government, industrial and academic sectors,” he said, adding that it would also collect and analyze information on the political and economic situation in the region, which would serve as a reference for potential investors. Plans are already in place for a summer program this year at the center, which is to offer intensive training courses mainly for vocational, senior-high school and university students in Vietnam, Wang said. The Vietnamese students are expected to become the main source of foreign enrollment at the university, he added.
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