The Legislative Yuan yesterday inaugurated a new committee on foreign affairs, with the goal of improving the nation’s international standing by achieving unity among legislators from different parties.
According to its charter, the Congressional Diplomacy and Strategy Consensus Committee aims to maintain regional peace through defense collaboration, as well as promote the nation’s international participation.
Legislative Yuan Secretary-General Lin Jih-jia (林志嘉) praised the committee as an “additional counterparty between Taiwan and other countries.”
Photo: CNA
The committee, the first of its kind, would be able to overcome obstacles that Taiwan faces in its foreign interactions, said Lin, who attended on behalf of Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃).
Through this “innovation,” lawmakers could reach a consensus over issues of national concern, enabling them to communicate internationally with one voice, he said.
They could then liaise with a wider array of organizations than possible by a congressional friendship association, such as Harvard University, the Heritage Foundation, international think tanks and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), he added.
Taiwan cannot remain on the sidelines as authoritarian expansionism threatens global stability and democracies everywhere, Lin said, touting the establishment of the committee as an expression of the legislature’s willingness to act.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Mark Ho (何志偉), who is to serve as chairman of the committee, emphasized the nonpartisan nature of the group.
Faced with changeable global circumstances, legislators need a pragmatic platform to discuss foreign affairs, Ho said.
Hopefully, it could result in a unified voice that sustains, regardless of which party is in power, he added.
In its day-to-day operations, the committee is to organize seminars and publish related commentaries, in addition to cooperating with international think tanks and NGOs, Ho said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods