The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday announced a Taiwan-Europe Connectivity Scholarship program to attract more European students to study Mandarin in the nation and advance bilateral relations.
The program aims to fortify Taiwan-Europe ties and encourage local universities to build up English-teaching environments, Department of European Affairs Deputy Director-General Kendra Chen (陳詠韶) told a news briefing in Taipei.
The program echoes the EU’s Europe-Asia Connectivity Strategy and the UK’s Global Britain vision, she said, expressing the hope that academic partnership would foster collaboration in other areas.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
The umbrella program includes three projects targeting the Czech Republic, Hungary and the UK, Chen said.
In the project targeting the Czech Republic, seven local universities would provide 50 scholarships per year to students from 14 Czech universities, she said, adding that 11 Czech students have enrolled in National Chengchi University and National Sun Yat-sen University.
The project, resulting from Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s visit to Taiwan in August last year, was first announced by the ministry in September last year.
In the project targeting Hungary, 11 local universities would provide 30 scholarships per year to students from nine Hungarian universities, Chen said.
In the project targeting the UK, 18 local universities would provide 100 scholarships per year to students from 42 British universities, she said, adding that six British students have enrolled in National Taiwan University.
The 18 local universities are also required to make plans regarding how the British students might assist English teaching or increase interactions with Taiwanese students on campuses, as part of the government’s efforts to make Taiwan fully bilingual by 2030, Chen said.
The Ministry of Education and the British Office Taipei in October last year signed a letter of intent to further bilateral cooperation in English-language education.
The foreign ministry offers subsidies to local universities based on their scholarship quotas, while they should provide a monthly stipend of at least NT$15,000 to each recipient, Chen said.
The recipients are required to take at least one Mandarin-learning course, she added.
The foreign students were isolated for 14 days upon entering Taiwan, followed by seven days of self-health management, in accordance with the Central Epidemic Command Center’ regulations, she said.
The ministry plans to extend the program to other European countries, especially those that have established representative offices in Taiwan, Chen said.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led