Former Indian defense minister George Fernandes and a delegation of India's leading academics will be attending a conference entitled "India-Japan-Taiwan Trialogue: Prospects for Democratic Coopera-tion" held by the Taiwan Thinktank in Taipei tomorrow.
Fernandes, currently a member of the House of the People and president of the United Party, is slated to give a keynote speech in the conference.
Fernandes and the Indian delegation's visit is hailed as a rare high-level exchange between Taiwan and India, which, despite increased ties over recent years, see few high-ranking official interactions because of pressure from China.
Among the delegation are Jagdish Shettigar, economic policy adviser to the BJP, Shyam Sunder, professor of accounting, economics and finance at the Yale School of Management, Y.S. Rajan, principal adviser of the Confederation of Indian Industry and M.D. Nalapat, professor of geopolitics and UNESCO Peace Chair at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education.
Jaya Jaitly, former president of India's Samata Socialist Party, will also attend the conference. She is the daughter of India's first-ever ambassador to Japan.
The conference "aims to promote awareness of potential areas of tripartite cooperation between India, Japan and Taiwan in the areas of economic growth and trade, high-tech industry, democratic development as well as other inter-regional issues of vital interest to each country," the Taiwan Thinktank said in a press release.
The think tank said it believes that an India-Japan-Taiwan strategic triangle will not only strengthen India-Taiwan and Japan-Taiwan relations, but also enhance interaction between India and Japan.
"This trilateral cooperation will undoubtedly consolidate the alliance of common values that each of these three countries shares: freedom, democracy, human rights and peace," it said.
Fernandes, who left office as defense minister this May, has maintained friendly connections with Taiwan. He is the first ministerial-level official in India to brave Beijing's pressure to meet with officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in New Delhi.
The coast guard on Friday took a Chinese fishing boat and the 17 people on board into custody, after it rammed into a patrol boat while attempting to flee. A 100-tonne coast guard vessel at about 8am discovered a Chinese fishing boat illegally operating in waters about 11 nautical miles (20.4km) northwest of Hsinchu, the Hsinchu offshore flotilla of the Coast Guard Administration said. The crew refused to allow law enforcement to board the ship and attempted to flee, it added. The coast guard vessel and another ship chased the fishing boat for about a half hour, during which time the Chinese boat
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that Beijing was trying to “annex” Taiwan, while China said its recent series of drills near Taiwan are aimed at combating the “arrogance” of separatist forces. The Ministry of National Defense earlier this month said that it had observed dozens of Chinese fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, operating nearby. The increased frequency of China’s military activities has raised the risk of events “getting out of hand” and sparking an accidental clash, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said last week. Asked about the spurt
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching