The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced the latest wave of a personnel reshuffle yesterday, including the appointments of new representatives to Poland, Germany and New Zealand.
Ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said at a news conference that Wei Wu-lien (魏武煉), head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, has been appointed representative to Germany; Tsai Erh-huang (蔡爾晃), a former ambassador to Belize, has been appointed representative to New Zealand; and Kelly Hsieh (謝武樵), head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto, has been appointed head of the Geneva bureau under the Taipei Economic and Cultural Delegation in Switzerland.
Wei will replace You Ching (尤清), a technocrat of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who resigned recently as the representative to Germany.
Other possible changes overseas include the head of Taipei representative offices in Belgium, Italy and Brazil, Chen said.
“All these new arrangements are still in the pipeline,” he said.
Meanwhile, representative to Switzerland George Liu (劉寬平) said yesterday he had tendered his resignation a day earlier in light of his dual citizenship.
Liu’s resignation came amid reports that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration was planning to replace a number of non-career diplomats appointed by the former DPP administration.
Liu, who is currently in Taipei, told the Central News Agency’s correspondent in Geneva by telephone that he had personally handed in his letter of resignation to Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) at a meeting with the minister on Tuesday morning.
The letter was written late last month as the discussion over the appropriateness of officials holding foreign citizenship or permanent residency resurfaced, Liu said.
Although Liu filed a form to renounce his US citizenship late last year before he assumed the post of representative to Switzerland in February, he is still a US citizen because US authorities have not asked him to appear at a US embassy or consulate to complete the procedure.
Liu, previously a Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator, had been named in media reports speculating which diplomatic officials were likely to be replaced in the personnel reshuffle.
Liu also expressed displeasure yesterday at the way the ministry had handled personnel issues.
Instead of directly informing those concerned of its decisions, the ministry has allowed the media to break the news, which has also sown rumors, Liu said.
“This has damaged the reputation of diplomatic officials,” he said.
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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