Marshall Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kitlang Kabua and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) yesterday welcomed a port call by Taiwan’s “Friendship Flotilla” as it arrived in the Pacific archipelago.
Tien arrived in the nation on Saturday for a five-day visit. He is acting as a special envoy of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to celebrate the 44th anniversary of the archipelago’s independence from the US and the 25th year of its establishment of diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The flotilla consists of the AOE 532 Panshi fast combat support ship, the Kang Ding-class frigate Cheng De and the Cheng Kung-class frigate Pan Chao.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The ships departed Taiwan in March and visited Palau last month before heading to the Marshall Islands to celebrate Constitution Day today.
The navy in 1996 began dispatching flotillas to friendly nations as a means of naval training, as well as to promote military exchanges, raise the country’s profile in the international community, and visit allies and overseas Taiwanese.
Tien on Saturday met with Marshall Islands President David Kabua and other senior officials to discuss issues of mutual interest. During his trip, Tien is also to host a commemorative reception to mark the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Marshall Islands.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led