A quasi-official organization was inaugurated in Taipei yesterday to help boost Taiwan's engagement with the Tibetan government-in-exile.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen said the foundation is expected to serve as a conduit between the Taiwan government and the Tibetan government-in-exile in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala.
The foundation will send a delegation to Dharamsala in February to invite the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, to make a third visit to Taiwan later this year. The Dalai Lama visited Taiwan in 1997 and again last year.
Chen said his administration has managed to improve relations with Mongolia and Tibet over the past two years mainly because it no longer regards Mongolian people and exiled Tibetans as mainland Chinese citizens.
"When we stop considering Mongolians and Tibetans to be mainlanders, the problems we had before are resolved," Chen said in a speech delivered at the ceremony.
He added that the foundation will provide aid and other support to exiled Tibetans.
The Dalai Lama said in a letter read by his envoy, Tashi Wangdi, that he hopes the foundation will help "strengthen the bond" between Taiwan and the Tibetan people.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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