Reuters news agency has apologized to Taiwan over a misunderstanding stemming from last week’s interview with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), during which she was asked about the possibility of another telephone call with US President Donald Trump, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said yesterday.
In the interview, which was published on Thursday with the headline “Taiwan president says phone call with Trump can take place again,” Reuters quoted Tsai as saying that “we don’t exclude the opportunity to call President Trump himself, but it depends on the needs of the situation and the US government’s consideration of regional affairs.”
Trump, in a Reuters interview published on Friday with the headline “Trump spurns Taiwan president’s suggestion of another phone call,” said that he does not want to create problems for Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) when Beijing appears to be helping efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Trump’s response has been described as a “slap in the face” to Tsai, and some Taiwanese have criticized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which arranged the interview, as having poor judgement and allowing itself to be “set up” by the news agency.
Some Democratic Progressive Party members accused Reuters of misinterpreting Tsai’s words, as she gave the interview in Mandarin, while others suggested that the agency had been bought off by China to set up Tsai’s apparent “humiliation” by Trump.
In response to media queries, Lee said Reuters had submitted a list of questions in advance, but the one about a possible repeat of the telephone call between Tsai and Trump was not on the list.
After the interview, Reuters expressed its regrets and apologized to the ministry, Lee said.
He said Reuters officials told the ministry that they “feel embarrassed,” saying the agency’s Asian bureau was unaware its Washington bureau had scheduled an interview with Trump right after the one with Tsai.
Asked about the matter during a legislative hearing, the minister said although the question was raised unexpectedly, Tsai’s answer was well-considered and circumspect.
He said Washington was concerned over Tsai’s comment about the possibility of calling Trump until the ministry provided them with a full transcript of the interview.
Tsai called Trump on Dec. 2 last year, less than a month after his election as US president, to offer her congratulations, the first known contact of its kind since the two nations severed diplomatic ties in 1979.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS