Canadian lawmaker Judy Sgro said on Friday that people “should not be intimidated by outside sources” after China publicly rebuked the parliamentarian for visiting Taiwan.
The Chinese embassy in Canada said via a statement that the visit to Taiwan by a parliamentary delegation led by Sgro from Sunday last week to Friday “blatantly violates the one-China principle” and “grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs,” the Globe and Mail reported.
The statement, which was provided to the Canadian daily on Thursday, said that China would “continue to take resolute and strong measures to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and oppose the interference by external forces in China’s internal affairs.”
Photo: CNA
Sgro on Friday said that pressure from China would not prevent her and other lawmakers from visiting Taiwan.
“I think people should be encouraged to visit Taiwan. You have so much to offer, and the world needs to know more about Taiwan. People need to be encouraged to come and have a positive experience, and should not be intimidated by outside sources,” Sgro said.
Sgro, who is chairwoman of the Canadian parliament’s Standing Committee on International Trade and head of the Canada-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group, arrived in Taiwan with a delegation that included Canadian lawmakers Angelo Iacono, Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Richard Martel and Chris Lewis.
The five-member group was the latest in a series of international delegations from the US, France, Germany and Japan to visit Taiwan since early August.
Sgro said the delegation visited to seek opportunities for economic and investment cooperation between Canada and Taiwan.
The group met with Taiwanese officials and representatives from technology giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Sgro and other Canadian lawmakers urged their government to begin a foreign investment promotion and protection arrangement with Taiwan, with talks on the so-called FIPA continuing.
Sgro said the delegation would “use our voices as parliamentarians” after returning to Canada.
“We will go back to Canada with a very positive message ... about the opportunities there are for Canada and Taiwan to continue to strengthen their relationship,” she said.
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