Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) arrived in Shanghai yesterday to attend tomorrow’s annual Taipei-Shanghai City Forum.
He met with Taiwan Affairs Office Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) soon after his arrival and later held talks with Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (楊雄) on direct flights between Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, which began in 2010.
Hau said that thanks to the direct flights, people could travel between Taipei and Shanghai in less than a day.
“For example, I left Taipei at 12:30pm today and arrived in Hongqiao at 2pm, ready for talks with friends,” he said.
The first Taipei-Shanghai City Forum was held in Taipei in April 2010. The two cities have taken turns to host the annual meeting.
This year, the forum will focus on issues related to the development of education, senior citizen services, sports and the media, Hau said.
Hau’s delegation includes Sean Lien (連勝文), deputy convenor of the Taipei City Economic Development Commission, and several prominent businessmen, such as Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) and Want Want China Times Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明).
During this year’s forum Hau and Yang are scheduled to sign four memorandums of understanding on issues concerning district administration, libraries and a citizen service hotline.
Hau will leave for Russia on Friday to attend the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan.
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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