The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday expressed its appreciation for the Australia-New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministers Consultations’ (ANZMIN) joint statement reaffirming the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and New Zealand Minister of Defense Judith Collins hosted Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong in Auckland for the second ANZMIN on Friday.
The ministers issued a joint statement after the meeting, in which they reiterated the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and their shared opposition to unilateral changes to the “status quo,” the ministry said, adding that it welcomes and appreciates the statement.
Photo: AP
The joint statement says the ministers “called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues through dialogue, without the threat or use of force or coercion.”
“They also reiterated their will to continue deepening relations with Taiwan in the economic, trade and cultural fields, as well as enhancing development coordination in the Pacific,” it says.
The ministry said Australia and New Zealand are Taiwan’s important friends in the Indo-Pacific region, and that there has been great progress in bilateral relationships with the two nations in recent years.
Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea has become a global consensus, so the ministry welcomes the international society’s continuous expression of concern and them taking action in protecting the rule-based international order, the ministry said.
Taiwan remains committed to promoting values-based diplomacy and jointly safeguarding democracy, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, it said.
In other news, the ministry yesterday said it welcomed a World Medical Association (WMA) delegation, which included WMA president Ashok Philip, council chair Jung Yul Park and secretary-general Otmar Kloiber.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) met with the delegation on Friday, welcoming them to Taiwan and expressing gratitude to the association for consistently supporting Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and its related mechanisms over the years, the ministry said.
Tien also said he hoped that Taiwan can cooperate with the WMA in other global healthcare issues and that Taiwanese physicians can form deeper partnerships with the association in the future, the ministry said.
“Taiwan is a force for good in the international society, willing to share our resources and experiences, such as donating medical resources to more than 80 countries during the [COVID-19] pandemic and pushing forward the ‘one country, one [medical] center’ program to help other countries improve their healthcare quality,” the ministry quoted Tien as saying.
Philip praised the nation’s advanced healthcare development and stressed the importance of Taiwan’s participation in the global health system, the ministry said.
South Korea had learned from Taiwan’s healthcare system, it cited Park as saying, adding that he had said he would be glad to see Taiwan included in international society.
Meanwhile, Kloiber said Taiwanese healthcare development ranks high and that its participation in the global public health system would be beneficial to the nation and the world, the ministry said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS