Taiwan and the Czech Republic share the determination to defend democracy and freedom, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told a forum in Prague yesterday, calling on democratic countries to unite against authoritarianism.
Wu made the remarks at a forum cohosted by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Czech think tank Sinopsis titled “Towards a productive relationship: Engaging with Taiwan in multiple domains.”
“As a former political scientist studying democratization, I have always wanted to visit late [Czech] president Vaclav Havel’s motherland,” Wu is cited as saying in a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Photo courtesy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
“The pursuit of freedom and democracy has always been the most important reason that our two countries are closely connected,” he said.
The combination of new technologies and social media has empowered people around the world to voice their views, but at the same time, democracy’s enemies have become increasingly bold and outspoken, Wu said.
“Our democratic accomplishments … need to be underpinned by determination and principles. This is especially true in times when authoritarianism continuously seeks to undermine the values and institutions that we all cherish,” he said.
When democracies are threatened around the world, “we need to work with and support each other. United we stand, divided we fall,” he said.
Taiwan is willing to share its valuable experiences in economic and technological developments with like-minded countries around the world and serve as “a force for good” against authoritarianism, Wu said.
Wu is part of a delegation to Europe that has since Sunday been visiting Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Wu is invited to a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international group of lawmakers, in Rome tomorrow, which he might attend via videoconference due to the visit’s tight schedule, the ministry said.
The ministry did not confirm media reports that Wu would also visit Poland and Brussels.
Moreover, a 66-person trade and investment delegation is visiting Lithuania, after leaving the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
Taiwan and Lithuania have agreed to establish representative offices in each other’s capitals, despite pressure from the Chinese government.
Lithuania’s representative office is expected to open at the beginning of next year, Lithuanian Minister of the Economy and Innovation Ausrine Armonaite said.
A Taiwanese firm might open a semiconductor factory in Lithuania, she said.
During a bilateral trade and investment forum yesterday, Taiwan and Lithuania signed six memorandums of understanding in life sciences, information and communications technology, financial technology, electric vehicles, laser technology, semiconductors and food processing.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS