Taipei’s culture history, beautiful scenery and gourmet food were highlighted in an article earlier this month published in Gulf News, the Middle East’s best-selling English-language newspaper.
“The city offers a heady mix of curated history, views to die for and, of course, endless shopping and food,” deputy opinion editor Omar Shariff wrote in the special report called “Exploring Taipei, the city that never sleeps.”
Shariff said that in the 1980s and 1990s, the word Taiwan conjured images of factories producing quality electronic goods and toys, and that the nation was not known as a leisure destination.
“But standing at the balcony of the Lalu Hotel, sipping delicious plum tea and staring at the mist-laden waters of Sun Moon Lake, I could see why the early European settlers called the country Formosa, meaning ‘beautiful’ in Portuguese,” Shariff wrote in the Dubai-based daily.
“It is a sort of mini-Tokyo, with neon lights, an ultra-efficient public transport system, colossal pedestrian crossings near metro stations and unusually busy people preoccupied with their smartphones,” he said.
The article also listed several must-see sites, such as Taipei 101 and the National Palace Museum.
“This treasure trove houses the world’s largest collection of Chinese art — about 796,000 artifacts, spanning 8,000 years of Chinese history,” Shariff said.
In a bid to draw travelers from the Middle East and India, the Tourism Bureau and the Chinese Muslim Association are working to increase the number of halal outlets in the country, he wrote.
Hsieh Chang-ming (謝長明), director of the Tourism Bureau’s Singapore office, is responsible for promoting tourism in the Middle East and said that it is a market with great potential for Taiwan to expand its tourism.
The bureau is to take part next month in the Arabian Travel Market Exhibition, the region’s leading travel trade show dedicated to unlocking business potential in the Middle East, Hsieh said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
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