President Chen Shui-bian's (
The teleconference will be held on July 26. Chen will be the first Taiwanese head of state to speak to FCCJ members.
Chen will be able to address a broad range of international media outlets since Tokyo is a media hub to which reporters from all over the globe are stationed, Huang said.
According to a statement posted by the FCCJ on its Web site, the teleconference has tentatively been scheduled to run for one and a half hours, from 11:30am to 1pm local time in Japan. During the event, Chen will give a speech, take questions on Taiwan's relations with Japan, China and other countries and discuss prospects for Taiwan's development.
Chen's speech will take place against the backdrop of the recent fishing row between Taiwanese fishing boats and Japanese coast guard vessels in disputed waters, and so local media have speculated that the conflict will be high on reporters' agenda.
However, given that a formal round of Taiwan-Japan fishery talks has been scheduled to be held in Tokyo three days after Chen's teleconference, sources said it is unlikely that the president will touch upon that subject in his address.
The teleconference will be his third such event with an overseas group.
The first took place last September when Chen addressed the UN Correspondents Association. That video conference coincided with the commencement of the 59th UN General Assembly plenary session. During the one-hour event, Chen shared with the international press Taiwan's appeal to join the world body.
The second such conference took place this March with members of the European Parliament. In that event, Chen made a strong case against China's proposed "Anti-Secession" Law and urged the EU to apply more rigorous standards when considering lifting the arms embargo on China to maintain the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS