DIPLOMACY
MOFA extends condolences
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday extended its condolences to the family of former Japanese prime minister Toshiki Kaifu, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 91. Members of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan would visit Kaifu’s family and extend their condolences on Taiwan’s behalf, the ministry said, describing Kaifu as a respected leader for his contributions to world peace and democracy. Kaifu was a friend of Taiwan, having led a delegation in May 2019 to meet with William Lai (賴清德) about eight months before Lai was elected vice president, the ministry said. As prime minister from 1989 to 1991, Kaifu was best known for deploying the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Persian Gulf in 1991 during the Gulf War. His involvement garnered him a reputation as one of the biggest contributors to international stability.
DIPLOMACY
Lai reportedly tapped for Honduras trip
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) is reportedly to send Vice President William Lai (賴清德) as a special envoy to Honduras to congratulate Honduran president-elect Xiomara Castro on her inauguration on Jan. 27. Lai’s outbound trip would include a stop-over in the US. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and his successor have invited Tsai to attend the inauguration ceremony. Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) yesterday said that plans for the event, including who to send, have not yet been finalized. The Presidential Office would announce its plans at an appropriate time, he added. A source yesterday said that the office’s response is standard procedure, as the government would make an official announcement only after the plan is finalized.
ELECTIONS
‘Nine-in-one’ date set
The “nine-in-one” local elections are to be held on Nov. 26, the Central Election Commission announced yesterday. The local elections, which take place every four years, select mayors and city councilors in the special municipalities of Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung; county commissioners, mayors, councilors, and township majors and representatives in the other 16 counties and county-level cities; and village and borough wardens in 22 localities. Elections would also be held for district administrators and representatives of mountainous indigenous districts in the six special municipalities. Those who wish to run for the position of mayors and councilors in municipalities, counties and county-level cities would have to register from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, the election commission said, adding that it would post a notice on Aug. 18.
ENVIRONMENT
Water recycling plant opens
Taiwan’s second water recycling plant was formally opened in a ceremony in Kaohsiung yesterday. The Kaohsiung Linhai Wastewater Treatment Plant has been contributing 33,000m3 of water to the city’s industry per day since it started operating late last year. It has been providing water to five companies, including state-run China Steel Corp and CPC Corp, Taiwan, the Kaohsiung Water Resources Bureau said. Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said that the plant is equipped with the country’s first high-end wastewater test center. Taiwan’s first water recycling plant opened in Kaohsiung’s Fengshan District (鳳山) in 2019 and produces 45,000m3 of water per day, the bureau said. The bureau is planning to build two more plants in the city, it said.
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
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