The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has planned a series of seminars for next month in four special municipalities on bolstering Taiwan’s national security, a party official said yesterday.
The first would be held on Thursday in Taipei, said Wu Jun-zhi (吳峻鋕), head of the DPP’s China affairs department.
With Beijing’s increasing influence worldwide, the competition between the US and China, and Taiwan’s geostrategic importance to the top two powers in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan’s national security can be guaranteed only by improving its national strength, Wu said.
The department has organized the seminars under the theme of “Strengthen Taiwan, the country will be safe,” to convey the party’s ideas and views on the nation’s national security and to gather public opinion on the topic, Wu said.
The Taipei forum would focus on US-China-Taiwan relations, while the forum in Taichung on Dec. 18 would focus on national defense and security, the one in Tainan on Dec. 20 would focus on the situation in Hong Kong, and the one in Kaohsiung on Dec. 26 would focus on Taiwan’s economy, he said.
In other developments, sources yesterday said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to take part virtually in three events hosted by three Washington-based think tanks.
Tsai is scheduled to participate in an event on Thursday hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, and to deliver speeches at the National Democratic Institute’s annual meeting on Tuesday next week, and at the Hudson Institute’s year-end celebration the following day, they said.
In her speeches, Tsai is to focus on three points, the sources said.
The first point is that Taiwan upholds freedom and democracy in the face of any challenge, a value it shares with the US, they said.
The second point is the challenges the international community faces, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic and supply chain restructuring, the sources said.
The third point is that international cooperation is even more important with regard to those challenges, they said.
Additional reporting by Yang Chun-hui
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS