The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not received information on a possible visit by Donald Trump Jr, but it “sincerely welcomes” any US official or member of the US Congress that would show the importance Washington places on Taiwan-US relations and the unveiling of the new American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) compound, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said yesterday.
Trump Jr is US President Donald Trump’s eldest son and serves as executive director of the trust that has owned the Trump Organization since his father took office.
Citing an unnamed source, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on Tuesday reported that Trump Jr is among the candidates to represent the US at the Tuesday dedication ceremony, as he does not hold public office, but is a person of significance.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
Washington would not send Cabinet-level officials to the event out of concern that such a move would provoke China, which could result in Beijing’s expulsion of the US ambassador to China, the report said.
Media have speculated about how Washington would mark the facility’s unveiling, which is widely perceived as a milestone in Taiwan-US relations.
It has been rumored that Washington would send US national security adviser John Bolton, who has long held pro-Taiwan views.
However, as the unveiling coincides with the highly anticipated summit in Singapore between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, some have predicted that the US would not send any high-ranking officials.
Citing a foreign affairs official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Wednesday reported that the US might send an assistant secretary of state to attend the ceremony, with US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce being the likely representative.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching