President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday continued to receive foreign dignitaries who traveled to Taiwan to participate in Monday’s inauguration ceremony, and congratulated Lai and expressed hopes to continue working with the nation.
In a meeting with former Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite, Lai said global situations and geopolitical strategies are changing rapidly and he hopes that both countries would step up collaborative efforts as they face significant challenges.
Taiwan and Lithuania are small countries trying to survive with strong and unfriendly neighbors, Grybauskaite said, adding that there is much the two nations could learn from each other.
Photo: CNA
In a meeting with Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, Lai said he is looking forward to working with Heine to create regional peace and prosperity.
Heine said Marshallese are firmly committed to their pledge to be Taiwan’s most stalwart ally and would continue to advocate for the nation on the global stage.
In a meeting with Somaliland House of Elders First Deputy Speaker Said Jama Ali, Lai mentioned “Project Africa” and said he hopes that his administration would continue working with Somaliland.
We hope to broaden the areas we collaborate and thrive together, he said.
Ali congratulated Lai and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) on their inauguration and said that Taiwan-Somaliland relations have continued to grow over the past few years, underscoring the friendship the two countries share.
Separately, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington held a celebratory event to mark the inauguration at the Twin Oaks estate, which US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul attended.
McCaul congratulated the Democratic Progressive Party on its historic third consecutive win and said Taiwan-US relations have never been closer than this year, which coincidentally was the 45th year of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act.
McCaul said he had been reviewing the Chinese Communist Party’s military facilities near Taiwan before the event and said that China is trying to change the “status quo.”
McCaul quoted former US general Douglas MacArthur in defining Taiwan as “the unsinkable carrier” and said the general’s description was more prescient than he might have realized.
McCaul also announced that he would visit Taiwan again at the end of this month and address the situation of delayed US arms deliveries.
Representative to the US Alexander Yui (俞大?) said Lai had clearly stated Taiwan’s act of goodwill in terms of tourism and Chinese students, and called on Beijing to realize that it is speaking with a democratically elected president.
Beijing should not mistake cross-strait relations for cross-party relations and confine itself to dealing with one political party, Yui said.
Yui declined to comment on whether he would continue as a representative, saying: “If the president wants me on the job, I will stay on the job.”
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS