President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday unveiled a suite in the century-old Presidential Office compound where 18 foreign contestants in a video blogging competition held by the government to promote Taiwan internationally won a turn to stay overnight.
Tsai, in a recorded video on Facebook, gave a tour of the suite in the Lixing Building, a two-story structure in the Presidential Office compound, highlighting the local decor and furnishings.
“Our goal is simple. We want the guests to enjoy the most welcoming, authentic Taiwanese ambience during their stay,” Tsai said in the two-and-a-half-minute video.
The first occupant of the suite was Kim Juh-yeok, a South Korean travel photographer and blogger, who stayed overnight yesterday.
The other 17 winners are to take turns staying in the suite over the next three months, which is the major part of their prize. They are also to be given a guided tour of the Presidential Office Building and invited to attend the morning flag-raising ceremony on the compound.
Most of the winners are vloggers who are famous in their home countries, Tsai said, adding that they could help promote Taiwan internationally because of their popularity on social media.
The winners come from Israel, Hungary, Germany, Thailand, France, Poland, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and the US, the Presidential Office said.
In the competition, the contestants were required to upload a video clip of up to 90 seconds explaining why they were best suited to promote Taiwan abroad.
From the 167 submissions received by Aug. 31, the judges selected 18 winners.
The competition was part of ongoing celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the historic Presidential Office Building.
The complex was built in 1919 during the Japanese colonial period. It first served as the office of the governor-general of Taiwan, before becoming the Presidential Office in 1950.
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