DIPLOMACY
Drew to visit Taiwan
New St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew is to arrive in Taiwan today for a four-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. It would be Drew’s first visit to Taiwan since taking office in Taipei’s Caribbean ally in August. President Tsai Ing- wen (蔡英文) will welcome Drew and his delegation with a military salute, the ministry said. The two sides are to exchange views on bilateral cooperation projects and topics of mutual interest, it said. Other members of the delegation include St Kitts and Nevis Minister of Foreign Affairs Denzil Douglas, Minister of Environment Joyelle Clarke, and Junior Minister for Youth Empowerment and Social Development, Gender Affairs, Aging and Disabilities Isalean Phillip, as well as Nevis Premier Mark Brantley.
TRAVEL
New system to be launched
The Ministry of Finance is this week to launch a digital service to allow people entering or exiting the nation to declare assets, such as gold and cash, online. People entering or exiting the nation with more than NT$100,000, more than US$10,000 or equivalent in foreign currency, or gold worth more than US$20,000 must declare it at customs. The process is currently done by filling out paper forms at customs checkpoints. People would be able to access the new system from computers and smartphones, Customs Administration officials said on Friday. They would be able to declare assets in excess of the regulated amount through the Carriage Paid To Single Window Web site (https://portal.sw.nat.gov.tw/PPL/index), they said. The new service would go online by Saturday in Chinese and English, they added.
DIPLOMACY
Tokyo to honor Taiwanese
The Japanese government on Thursday said that it would honor three Taiwanese this fall for their contributions to enhancing relations between Taipei and Tokyo. Antonio Chiang (江春男), vice president of the General Association of Chinese Culture, would receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon for his years of support for Taiwan research in Japan, the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association said. Lai Ming-chu (賴明珠), the first Taiwanese to translate the works of Japanese author Haruki Murakami, would receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays for her contributions to the popularization of Japanese culture and promotion of understanding of Japan in Taiwan, the association said. Tsai Shao-ching (蔡少卿), who served in the association for 30 years, would receive the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Rays, it said.
CULTURE
Vilnius holds film event
The Asian Art Centre in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, is hosting film screenings to introduce Taiwan and its people through documentary films. The exhibition, titled “Independent Taiwanese Documentary,” began on Thursday and would run until Wednesday at the Skalvija Cinema Center. It features nine films dating from the 1960s to the present. The event also features lectures on Taiwanese history, politics and cinema by Vilnius University faculty members Balys Astrauskas and Konstantinas Andrijauskas, and by Chen Pin-chuan (陳斌全), head of the cultural division of Taiwan’s representative office in the UK. Admission to the screenings IS free and the films are presented with subtitles in English and Lithuanian.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift