The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said that it has approved an application by the Taipei City Government to invite Shanghai’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Deputy Director Li Xiaodong (李驍東) for a visit on Saturday.
The visit would be the first by a Shanghai official in three years, as person-to-person interactions had been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Taipei and Shanghai are sister cities.
It is not yet known whether Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) would personally meet with Li.
The Taipei City Government said that it would observe all government regulations, ensure that the visiting group is low-key, keep the visit simple and not make any political statements.
The MAC said the government has yet to allow Chinese individuals to visit Taiwan for professional interactions and that all applications by Chinese to enter Taiwan are carefully reviewed.
It said that after conferring with the Taipei City Government, it has decided that the city’s application meets all required criteria.
The application was approved following a review by the Central Epidemic Command Center, it added.
The MAC said the Shanghai delegation would visit the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taipei and exchange opinions on city governance with the Taipei City Government.
It called on the Taipei City Government to make the group’s itinerary open and transparent.
It said that the Taipei City Government should also take precautions to guarantee the delegation’s safety, while ensuring that the group observes the regulations and respects the local culture.
The MAC said any interactions should be rational and equal, and based on mutual respect.
The government supports cross-strait exchanges that comply with Taiwan’s laws and do not have overt political connotations, it added.
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