The US supports Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday in a news release after the “US-Taiwan Working Group Meeting on International Organizations.”
The AIT’s release came two days after China unveiled a set of guidelines detailing what it considers “the criminal nature of Taiwanese independence” worthy of punishment, including promoting Taiwan’s entry to international organizations where statehood is a condition.
The AIT said that it held consultations in Taipei on Friday with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, and representatives from the US Department of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
“The consultations focused on expanding Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the United Nations system and other international fora,” it said.
“Taiwan’s world-class expertise offers considerable added value in addressing today’s most urgent challenges, including in international public health, food security, aviation safety, and climate change,” it said.
“US participants reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding commitment to Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system and the international community, including at the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization,” it said.
“Our support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international fora is in line with our one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances,” 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
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
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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