Two Chinese asylum seekers who have been stuck at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for four months were allowed to enter Taiwan late on Wednesday.
Yan Kefen (顏克芬), 44, and Liu Xinglian (劉興聯), 64, entered Taiwan on the basis of “professional exchanges,” after they earlier that day exited the country by flying to an undisclosed location.
They were then picked up at the airport by friends and taken separately to prearranged accommodation. They now hope that the US or Canada will grant them asylum.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Yan and Liu on Sept. 27 last year arrived at the airport on a flight from Thailand and were scheduled to continue to Beijing, but did not get on the outbound flight.
They submitted a request for asylum on the grounds of political persecution in China, but could not provide any supporting evidence, the Mainland Affairs Council said.
The two were confined to a fourth-floor room at the airport.
Yan told the Central News Agency that life in the airport was “alright,” although he complained of stress and chest pain, as there was not enough room to move around.
“I haven’t slept in a real bed for a long time,” he said.
On Thursday last week, the council said that they could enter Taiwan on the basis of “professional exchanges” until they are granted asylum in a third nation, but would first have to exit and re-enter.
New School for Democracy board member Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) on Friday last week said that he was willing to act as guarantor for the two asylum seekers and that his decision was based solely on human rights considerations.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS