A Taiwanese physicist issued an open letter recently to urge the Physical Society of the Republic of China to suggest that local universities and research institutes refrain from inviting US physicists to Taiwan in response to the US’ “unequal visa application procedure.”
In a letter publicized in the latest volume of the Chinese-language Physics Bimonthly, Lin Juhn-jong (林志忠), a professor from the department of electrophysics at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), said many Taiwanese physics researchers or professors had encountered difficulties when applying for US visas in recent years, but had only complained in private while failing to publicly discuss how to respond to the situation.
Lin urged the society to suggest that the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, the National Science Council and the Ministry of Education reduce the number of invitations extended to US professors and researchers of physics, while increasing the number of invitations to researchers from Europe and Japan.
Lin also called on the society to urge the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to require that all physics professors and researchers from the US apply for a visa go through a “detailed review process” and pay at least US$150 on the principle of “equality” in terms of visa applications.
Under current regulations, US citizens receive a 30-day visa exemption.
“This should be done in case a few of them steal Taiwan’s scientific research results or endanger Taiwan’s national security,” Lin said.
Lin, a researcher of condensed matter, published the letter after he informed the Naturejobs.com Web site last September that he had encountered difficulties in applying for a US visa after the terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001.
Lin complained about a lengthy application process and the need to prepare a detailed curriculum vitae, having to travel to Taipei for a personal interview and the US$150 fee.
Lin said he now had to wait for between two and four months for a visa instead of the one to two weeks he had to wait before Sept. 11, adding that in 2005, he did not receive a visa in time to attend a conference of the American Physical Society even though he applied for the visa about two months in advance.
“I have visited Europe on eight occasions, Japan on 10 occasions, and Hong Kong and China about 10 times since the summer in 2002, but I have only visited the US once during this period of time,” Lin said in the letter.
“As a condemned [sic]-matter physicist, I’m proud of being kept out of the US borders. I am very occupied by my trips and invitations to Japan and European countries. How can I have extra time to visit the US? The United States is fading out of my intellectual map of world,” he wrote.
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