Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) met with former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) on the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ summit that opened in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday.
Siew is attending the summit on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Lee said in a Facebook post on Saturday night that he was pleased to have had tea with Siew earlier in the day.
“Caught up over tea with our old friends Vincent Siew and his wife, Susan, from Taiwan on the sidelines of APEC,” Lee wrote in a photograph caption under the name “LHL.”
The photo of the smiling group shows Lee and Siew sitting next to each other, with their wives seated in front of them.
The Facebook update has since attracted more than 1,800 likes, more than 70 shares and dozens of comments.
Among the comments was one by Henry Koh, who expressed gratitude in Chinese for Taiwan’s assistance to Singapore in its early years as an independent city-state.
In another comment, Chua Aik Hong Desmond wrote that he loves Taiwan as it is a clean and safe travel destination and its people are very friendly.
“Visited Taiwan thrice, and going again in next January. I love Taiwan because the place is clean, safe and the people there are very friendly and helpful. Good place for vacation, highly recommended,” he wrote.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔), who is serving as the spokesman for the Taiwanese delegation to the Bali summit, said Siew’s meeting with Lee was a private one and involved no formal discussions.
Taiwan has been in talks with Singapore on an economic partnership agreement.
Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said at the end of the annual APEC ministerial meeting on Saturday last week that Taiwan could sign an economic partnership agreement with Singapore by the end of the year.
Singapore has already completed its review of the articles in the planned agreement and has offered its opinions to Taiwan, Chang said.
As soon as Taiwan has finished its review, the two sides can sign agreement, Chang said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS