The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) posted a photo on its Facebook page on Thursday, which it said demonstrates the strong security cooperation between Taiwan and the US.
The photo shows Taiwan’s chief of the general staff, General Yen De-fa (嚴德發), among the attendees at a joint change of command ceremony for the US Pacific Command (PACOM) and US Pacific Fleet (PACFL) on May 27 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The caption read Yen and Admiral Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) of Taiwan attended the ceremony in recognition of the strong security cooperation between Taiwan and the US.
The Ministry of National Defense also confirmed that Yen and Lee were present at the ceremony, at which US Admiral Harry Harris Jr assumed command of PACOM and US Admiral Scott Swift assumed command of PACFLT.
Lee, the navy commander, was not in the photo posted by the AIT, but he appeared in one of the photos posted by US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert on his Facebook page.
Greenert was one of the senior US military officers at the ceremony.
The presence of Yen and Lee at the ceremony followed Taiwan’s participation in the first amphibious leaders symposium hosted by the US Pacific Command in Hawaii last month, which brought together representatives from more than 20 countries.
In other news, new AIT Director Kin Moy is scheduled to arrive in Taiwan on Monday to take up the position, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said yesterday.
Christopher Marut, who arrived in Taiwan in September 2012, left the nation yesterday morning as he concluded his tenure.
“Director Marut extends his thanks to all of the people of Taiwan for having offered him a tremendously rewarding and enriching three years,” the AIT said in a statement yesterday.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) awarded Marut with the Order of the Brilliant Star on Wednesday in recognition of his contributions to deepening US-Taiwan relations.
“Taiwan is an amazing success story — as a dynamic democracy, an entrepreneurial, high technology economy, and a caring, cultured and educated society with deeply rooted beliefs in freedom and openness, human rights,” Marut said in a post on the AIT’s Facebook page, adding that he accepted the award on behalf of the team at AIT.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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