The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday expressed gratitude and sent best wishes to New Zealand’s newly founded All-Party Parliamentary Group on Taiwan.
Launched by New Zealand lawmakers Simon O’Connor and Ingrid Leary, the group has so far been joined by 22 cross-party lawmakers, the ministry said in a statement.
O’Connor welcomed group members to support Taiwan by boosting economic and trade relations with the country, and helping efforts to maintain security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The group’s formation is “timely,” as this year marks the 10th anniversary of free trade with Taiwan, which is the sixth-biggest trading partner of New Zealand, Leary wrote on Facebook, referring to the Agreement Between New Zealand and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Cooperation passed by the Legislative Yuan in 2013.
New Zealand and Taiwan “share ancestral whakapapa, democratic values and a common interest in a stable Indo-Pacific region,” she said, using the Maori term for ancestry.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵), who chairs the legislature’s Taiwan-New Zealand Inter-Parliamentary Amity Association, sent their best wishes via prerecorded videos, which were played at the inauguration of the group on Wednesday, the ministry said.
Taiwan and New Zealand jointly helped launch the Indigenous Peoples Economic and Trade Cooperation Arrangement to help indigenous people establish international businesses, Wu said in the video.
He called on the New Zealand parliament to support Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to deepen exchanges between the two countries.
Deepening the ties between Taiwan and New Zealand is the consensus among lawmakers from the two nations, as evidenced by their legislatures launching parliamentary friendship groups, Lin said.
She invited the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Taiwan to visit the nation to promote economic and trade exchanges, and jointly safeguard the values of freedom, democracy and human rights.
Representative to New Zealand Joanne Ou (歐江安), who spoke at the ceremony, also called on the group to support Taiwan’s bid to join the CPTPP and other international organizations, the ministry said.
“I am convinced that cordial relations between our two countries will reach new heights,” New Zealand news site Stuff quoted Ou as saying.
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
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
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
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS