Taiwan will soon grant visa waivers to the nationals of its six diplomatic allies in the Pacific, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced yesterday.
Addressing the Marshallese legislature, Tsai said she believes the decision will further enhance Taiwan’s relations with the six: the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, Palau and Tuvalu.
Tsai said her administration’s “steadfast diplomacy” policy, with a focus on “mutual assistance for mutual benefits,” is aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation and substantial ties with diplomatic allies to develop relationships that are reciprocal and mutually beneficial.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan has taken steps to enhance its exchanges with the Marshall Islands, such as in the area of education, Tsai said, adding that a Taiwan-Marshall Islands presidential scholarship program was officially launched on Monday.
She said Taiwan also attaches great importance to sustainable development and is committed to helping the Marshall Islands promote food security and a healthy diet, with considerable progress having been made on farming and animal husbandry.
For example, Taiwan’s agriculture technical corps in the Marshall Islands has provided swine breeding stock to farmers for free and has trained seed instructors who are responsible for teaching pig-raising techniques to the farmers, she said.
Taiwan has helped the Marshall Islands build “green” farms, where waste produced on the farms is recycled and reused, she added.
She assured the Marshall Islands that it will always have Taiwan’s support in the fight against climate change.
Tsai also mentioned the Austronesian culture shared by both nations.
Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kolas Yotaka, an Amis Aborigine, are among the members of her delegation, hoping to deepen mutual exchanges and understanding using Austronesian culture as a medium, Tsai said.
Tsai is in the Marshall Islands after a two-night stay in Hawaii, and is scheduled to visit Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands before making a transit stop on the US territory of Guam, on Friday.
She is to return home on Saturday.
The coast guard on Friday took a Chinese fishing boat and the 17 people on board into custody, after it rammed into a patrol boat while attempting to flee. A 100-tonne coast guard vessel at about 8am discovered a Chinese fishing boat illegally operating in waters about 11 nautical miles (20.4km) northwest of Hsinchu, the Hsinchu offshore flotilla of the Coast Guard Administration said. The crew refused to allow law enforcement to board the ship and attempted to flee, it added. The coast guard vessel and another ship chased the fishing boat for about a half hour, during which time the Chinese boat
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that Beijing was trying to “annex” Taiwan, while China said its recent series of drills near Taiwan are aimed at combating the “arrogance” of separatist forces. The Ministry of National Defense earlier this month said that it had observed dozens of Chinese fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, operating nearby. The increased frequency of China’s military activities has raised the risk of events “getting out of hand” and sparking an accidental clash, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said last week. Asked about the spurt
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
RSS