President William Lai (賴清德) currently has no plans to travel overseas, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said yesterday, denying media reports that a planned trip to Paraguay via New York was blocked by the US.
At a routine news conference, Hsiao denied a Financial Times report that said Lai’s planned visits to diplomatic allies Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize had been delayed or canceled due to US President Donald Trump blocking a stopover in New York following protests from China.
The Financial Times, which cited three anonymous sources for its story, said that Trump was concerned that Lai’s trip would affect ongoing trade talks between the US and China.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
Hsiao said that Lai did not have any overseas travel arrangements because of ongoing recovery efforts in southern Taiwan following Typhoon Danas and international developments such as tariff negotiations with the US.
Any finalized overseas itinerary would be announced by the Presidential Office in line with usual procedures, he said.
Hsiao’s statement was nearly identical to that made on Monday night by Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧), as the government responded to questions about a trip that had reportedly been planned, but not yet formally announced.
An Agence France-Presse report on July 14 cited Paraguayan President Santiago Pena as saying at an investment forum that Lai would visit his country “in 30 days.”
At the time Pena made the comment, he was hosting a delegation comprising about 30 business leaders and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in Asuncion.
Bloomberg News reported two days later that Lai was planning to stop in New York on Monday next week and then Dallas 10 days later as part of a trip to diplomatic allies Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize.
However, a Bloomberg report on Monday said that plans for the trip were thrown into flux late last week when Taiwan could not get the US to give the green light.
Like the Financial Times, the Bloomberg report also cited the Trump administration’s concern that Lai’s stopovers in the US could derail trade talks with China.
The American Institute in Taiwan, responding to an inquiry about the matter, said that it could not comment on hypothetical questions, as Taiwan had not announced the president’s visit.
Meanwhile, the US Department of State yesterday said that its policies for stopovers by Taiwanese leaders have not changed.
“The United States remains committed to our longstanding ‘one China’ policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques and the ‘six assurances,’” a state department spokesperson told the Central News Agency on condition of anonymity.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS