Separate parliamentary delegations from Finland and Switzerland arrived in Taiwan yesterday for official visits that are to include meetings with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other top government officials, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The Finnish delegation is led by Finnish Parliamentary Friendship Group Chair Mikko Karna. The group is to visit the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區) and the Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (台灣半導體研究中心) in Hsinchu City, as well as the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) and Kaohsiung Harbor, before its departure on Thursday.
Karna is “an important friend of Taiwan who firmly supports Taiwan’s democracy, freedom and international participation,” the ministry said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
In the face of expanding authoritarianism, Taiwan would continue to deepen ties with like-minded partners like Finland to strengthen democratic resilience, and safeguard the shared values of freedom and democracy, it said.
Meanwhile, the first two members of a Swiss cross-party delegation arrived for a six-day visit.
Swiss national councilors Fabian Molina and Mustafa Atici of the Social Democratic Party arrived at Taoyuan International Airport just after 6am. The three other members of the delegation — Swiss national councilors Nicolas Walder and Leonore Porchet of the Green Party, and Yves Nidegger of the Swiss People’s Party — were expected to arrive on later flights.
Photo: CNA
Molina and Walder serve as copresidents of the Swiss-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group.
The group is to visit the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Development Council, the Mainland Affairs Council, and the National Science and Technology Council, as well as the Hsinchu Science Park.
The Swiss lawmakers would also travel to outlying Kinmen County to visit the sites of historical battles between Taiwan and China, before departing on Friday, the ministry said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS