The budget for this year’s twin-city forum between Taipei and Shanghai would be frozen if China’s military aircraft and ships continue to patrol near Taiwan ahead of the event later this year, the Taipei City Council said on Monday.
Following six days of inter-party negotiations, the decision was made on Monday to budget about NT$1.3 million (US$46,903) for the annual event, on one condition.
The condition put forth by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus was that the budget should be frozen if the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to send aircraft and vessels to areas around Taiwan prior to the event’s opening.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
Taipei city councilors from the DPP and their Social Democratic Party counterpart, Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅), initially said that the budget should be scrapped entirely, but Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and New Party councilors opposed the idea.
They eventually reached a consensus and agreed to attach the condition.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hsin-yi (王欣儀) said that the party’s caucus accepted the proposal with the condition, as the PLA’s patrols near Taiwan have caused resentment.
New Party convener Pan Hwai-tzong (潘懷宗) said that the twin-city forum should be held if cross-strait relations are good at the time, and canceled if they are not.
The council is reviewing the NT$174.532 billion in expenses and NT$171.997 billion in income that the Taipei City Government has budgeted for this year.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS