Kinmen County Commissioner Li Wo-shi (李沃士) on Friday asked Fujian Province Chinese Communist Party Secretary You Quan (尤權) to help secure a drop in price for the water that Kinmen plans to buy from the Chinese province during the official’s visit.
Li made the request at a briefing by Kinmen County Waterworks Director Wang Teng-wei (王登緯) on the progress of a plan aimed at resolving the county’s chronic water shortages by channeling water across the Taiwan Strait.
The briefing was organized for You, who flew from Taiwan proper to Kinmen earlier in the day. Kinmen was the last stop of You’s five-day tour of Taiwan, which started on Monday.
Wang said Kinmen has been working on buying water from China for nearly 20 years. Last year, two intermediary bodies of the respective sides reached an agreement on the issue, he said.
Now the only matters that need to be addressed are the price of the water and the construction of pipes that will connect China’s Longhu Reservoir and Kinmen’s Tienpu Reservoir, Wang said.
However, Fujian’s water supplier has set the price at nearly 2 yuan (US$0.30) per 1,000 liters of water and the county government hopes that figure can be lowered, Wang said.
You declined to answer media queries about the issue.
The visit was You’s first to the country and his presence has drawn media attention because Fujian is the Chinese province designated by Beijing as the test spot for its Taiwan policy, meaning that any plans to promote cross-strait exchanges are first carried out in Fujian.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we