Diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Australia have reached a new milestone as Taipei recently opened a representative office in Brisbane, the third-largest city in Australia, the ministry of foreign affairs said yesterday.
The newly established Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brisbane is the fourth consular office to be opened in Australia, in addition to the ones in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
The latest addition to the Brisbane consular arm has made Australia the country with the third most Taiwanese representative offices, after the US and Japan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the establishment of the economic and cultural office in Brisbane on Aug. 16 after strong support from overseas Taiwanese in Australia.
A local Taiwanese association in Queensland started a petition campaign in October, 2002 to ask the government to open a consular office in Brisbane.
There are roughly 20,000 Taiwanese residents in Brisbane, which accounts for 40 percent of the total Taiwanese expatriates in Australia, making Brisbane the largest Taiwanese hub in the country.
The director for the Brisbane representative office, James Tien (田中光), arrived in Brisbane on Dec. 9 and received a warm welcome from local government offic-ials and Taiwanese residents.
Tien, 53, formerly served in Taiwan's representative offices in Houston and Canada, as well as in the embassy of Taiwan's former ally the Kingdom of Tonga and the Trade Mission Office in Fiji Islands.
He was also once the convener of the task force for the country's World Health Organization entry bid.
Meanwhile, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) recently disclosed that the ministry has decided to send a former section chief of Taipei's Representative Office in Belgium, Song Zi-zheng (宋子正), to replace Cheng Shin (鄭欣) as ambassador to the Republic of Chad.
Cheng will become director of Taipei's Representative Office in Italy.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS