Diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Australia have reached a new milestone as Taipei recently opened a representative office in Brisbane, the third-largest city in Australia, the ministry of foreign affairs said yesterday.
The newly established Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brisbane is the fourth consular office to be opened in Australia, in addition to the ones in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
The latest addition to the Brisbane consular arm has made Australia the country with the third most Taiwanese representative offices, after the US and Japan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the establishment of the economic and cultural office in Brisbane on Aug. 16 after strong support from overseas Taiwanese in Australia.
A local Taiwanese association in Queensland started a petition campaign in October, 2002 to ask the government to open a consular office in Brisbane.
There are roughly 20,000 Taiwanese residents in Brisbane, which accounts for 40 percent of the total Taiwanese expatriates in Australia, making Brisbane the largest Taiwanese hub in the country.
The director for the Brisbane representative office, James Tien (田中光), arrived in Brisbane on Dec. 9 and received a warm welcome from local government offic-ials and Taiwanese residents.
Tien, 53, formerly served in Taiwan's representative offices in Houston and Canada, as well as in the embassy of Taiwan's former ally the Kingdom of Tonga and the Trade Mission Office in Fiji Islands.
He was also once the convener of the task force for the country's World Health Organization entry bid.
Meanwhile, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) recently disclosed that the ministry has decided to send a former section chief of Taipei's Representative Office in Belgium, Song Zi-zheng (宋子正), to replace Cheng Shin (鄭欣) as ambassador to the Republic of Chad.
Cheng will become director of Taipei's Representative Office in Italy.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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