FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Wu to attend Esper talks
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) is to hold an online meeting with former US secretary of defense Mark Esper on Wednesday next week to discuss the growing threat China poses in the Indo-Pacific region, the McCain Institute for International Leadership has said. The meeting, scheduled at midnight, would be the sixth of a series of public talks between Esper and a policy expert on issues related to US national security, said the Washington-based think tank, which is organizing the event. A main focus of the series is Indo-Pacific security partnerships and challenges such as increasing international authoritarianism and the spread of disinformation. Esper served as secretary of defense under former US president Donald Trump from July 2019 to November 2020. He is a distinguished fellow at the McCain institute.
EDUCATION
Additional students can enter
Taiwan is on March 1 to begin allowing the entry of international language students who do not receive Huayu Enrichment Scholarships, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said on Tuesday, adding that about 5,000 students without scholarships are expected to arrive by June 30. Schools that offer Chinese-language courses of six months or longer can submit entry permit applications for their prospective students, he said. The start date was chosen to avoid the Lunar New Year holiday to ensure enough quarantine hotel capacity, Pan said. International language students without an Alien Residency Certificate (ARC) have not been allowed to enter Taiwan since it imposed restrictions on foreign travelers in March 2020, amid the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taiwan in August last year began to grant entry to international students who are granted ministry scholarships, but do not have an ARC. Separately, the ministry on Monday said that about 1,000 foreign teachers hired by schools for the ongoing school year ending June 30 can apply for a special visa to enter the nation. Students and teachers would have to quarantine for 14 days upon entering Taiwan, observe another seven days of self-health management and frequently get tested for COVID-19 during the 21-day period, the ministry said.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Taiwanese to stay in Ukraine
Twenty-eight Taiwanese have chosen to remain in Ukraine despite the government urging them to leave, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that 34 Taiwanese residents of Ukraine have since Saturday been contacted. Six have left the country amid Western governments warning of an imminent Russian invasion, while nine have relocated to the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland, Ou said. Although the government respects the decision of those who wish to stay, the ministry, through its representative office in Moscow, is providing them with the latest updates, Ou said. Taiwan is among 31 countries that asked their citizens to leave Ukraine, the ministry said. In the event of an emergency, Taiwanese in Ukraine can call +7-969-008-6111 to seek assistance from the Moscow office, it said. They can also contact the Taiwan Trade Center in Kiev, which is run by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, at +380-44-537-0982, it added.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
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