Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) left Taiwan for a 10-day visit to the US on Thursday.
This was part of the party’s efforts to strengthen ties with Washington.
Speaking with reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Hsia did not reveal the details of his trip, saying only that he would meet with many “old friends” in Washington, as well as KMT members in San Francisco.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Hsia denied that his sojourn aimed to provide a counterweight to former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) ongoing visit to China, saying that the timing was “purely coincidental.”
The KMT has consistently maintained the policy pursued during Ma’s presidency of “being close to the US, friendly to Japan and in harmony with China,” he said.
It had been some time since he had visited the US, Hsia said, adding that he would seek to demonstrate the party’s emphasis on its relations with Washington during the trip.
Hsia and KMT International Affairs Department head Alexander Huang (黃介正) had been invited by the Center for Strategic and International Studies to attend the Washington-based think tank’s US-Japan-Taiwan Track 2 trilateral tabletop exercises, the KMT said in a statement on Wednesday.
Hsia would also call on Taiwanese expatriates in San Francisco and Washington, the KMT said, adding that US government officials and friends at US think tanks had invited him for talks after learning of his upcoming visit.
The KMT said that it has continued to beef up its party diplomacy after the presidential and legislative elections in January.
Hsia’s US trip follows a visit by KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) to Singapore in February.
Hsia is scheduled to return to Taiwan on April 15.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS