Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday led a delegation of businesspeople from 20 uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturing companies to Lithuania to develop business relationships with European companies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
The ministry commissioned the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) to organize the delegation to showcase Taiwan’s UAV development and manufacturing capabilities, and demonstrate its potential value to the UAV supply chains of other democratic countries, the ministry said.
The group is visiting Europe from yesterday until Sunday, it said.
Photo: Fang Wei-li, Taipei Times
The delegation led by Lin would meet with European UAV companies, and together they can hopefully strengthen the global democratic UAV supply chain, MOFA said.
When it comes to defense technology and economic security, many countries are placing great importance on the UAV industry, it said.
A core concept of Lin’s “integrated diplomacy” strategy is to use Taiwan’s technological advantages to become a trusted part of the national defense supply chains of other democratic countries, it added.
Lin invited an alliance of drone manufacturers led by Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (漢翔航空) chairman Hu Kai-Hung (胡開宏) to co-organize the visit with TAITRA, the ministry said, adding that Hu was also asked to be the delegation’s leader.
Bloomberg yesterday reported that a source, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive matter, said the delegation is expected to meet Lithuanian government officials and attend a forum in Vilnius focused on drone technologies.
President William Lai (賴清德) has made advancing drone manufacturing a priority since he took office nearly six months ago, an effort partly intended to offset the Chinese military’s technological edge in this area, the Bloomberg report said.
In September, Taiwan hosted two groups of US industry executives so that they could meet counterparts, and the Ministry of Defense last month signed agreements with the US allowing it to buy as many as 1,000 attack drones from AeroVironment and Anduril Industries to aid in blunting a potential Chinese invasion, the report said.
Former minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) traveled to Europe twice last year. In past years, other Taiwanese foreign ministers made trips that were not publicly disclosed, likely to avoid upsetting Beijing, Bloomberg said.
Lin’s trip would probably prompt China to file diplomatic complaints with Lithuania, and possibly to retaliate somehow against Taiwan, it said, adding that Beijing opposes any official contact with Taipei by countries with which it has diplomatic ties.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS