Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) plans to visit Canada next week, two diplomatic sources said.
Tsai, whose second term ended in May, is to visit Nova Scotia and deliver a speech at the Halifax International Security Forum, which begins on Friday next week, two diplomatic sources told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
Tsai’s office said that if details of travel plans are confirmed, it would announce them at an appropriate time. It did not elaborate.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Neither the Halifax Forum nor Canada’s Global Affairs department had responded to requests for comment sent outside of Canadian office hours.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Canada has a difficult relationship with China, including accusations by Ottawa about Chinese hacking attacks that Beijing denies, and disputes over human rights and trade.
Tsai’s travel plans to Canada and the forum were first reported by Taiwanese media.
Tsai last month visited the Czech Republic, France and Belgium in a sensitive trip due to concerns about Chinese espionage and harassment.
President William Lai (賴清德) fully supported her European visit, calling her the “best spokesperson” for the nation on the international stage.
Under Tsai’s watch, the government greatly boosted military investment and deepened unofficial relations with major countries including the US and Japan.
Meanwhile, a national security official yesterday declined to confirm media reports that Lai was planning a trip to Taiwan’s South Pacific allies with a stopover in Hawaii as soon as late this month.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the planning of the president’s overseas visits “proceeds according to the original pace” and that “there will be no surprise.”
Any such visit would be “announced when the time is ripe,” they said.
Chinese-language media have reported that Lai was planning to visit the South Pacific late this month or early next month, and would stop over in Hawaii.
Taiwan has 12 diplomatic allies, three of which are in the South Pacific: Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.
Speculation about Lai embarking on his overseas visit after taking office in May circulated intermittently for months, with the Presidential Office responding only that “any such arrangements will be reported to the public in due time.”
Despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations, Washington has allowed Taiwanese presidents to make stopovers on US soil during their trips to visit Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
How they were received in the US was often interpreted by the media as a sign of how Washington wanted to handle its relations with Taipei.
Tsai traveled to allies in the South Pacific twice during her two four-year tenures, in 2017 and 2019.
Her 2017 trip included layovers in Honolulu, Hawaii and Guam.
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