President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) delegation that is to visit Panama and Paraguay later this month will reportedly include representatives from Asustek Computer and Evergreen Marine Corp, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.
Executives from five other firms — Everest Textile Co, Fwu Sow Grain Products Co, General Energy Solutions Inc, I-Mei Foods Co and Sanyang Industry Co — are also to be part of the delegation, the United Evening News said.
Tsai is to embark on a nine-day trip to Panama and Paraguay on Friday, with transit stops in Miami and Los Angeles.
Tsai is scheduled to attend the inauguration ceremony of the expanded Panama Canal on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
From Panama, Tsai is to head to Paraguay, Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in South America, the following day.
The seven firms were selected based on the principles of practicality and functionality, the United Evening News reported, citing sources at the Presidential Office. They are either involved in sectors in which Taiwan and the allies have ongoing cooperative projects or that play key roles in the allies’ economies, such as food, animal feed and textiles, the report said.
Some of the companies might also be willing to invest in the region, according to the report.
Tsai’s entourage is set to include National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Jason Liu (劉建忻) and Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) and his deputy Javier Hou (侯清山), Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) and some legislators.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift