President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday issued a congratulatory message to Fumio Kishida after he was officially elected Japan’s 100th prime minister.
The 64-year-old former Japanese minister of foreign affairs on Wednesday last week won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election after two rounds of voting, positioning him to take over from Yoshihide Suga as prime minister. He did so after winning a majority of votes in both houses of parliament yesterday.
Tsai extended sincere congratulations to Kishida on behalf of Taiwan’s government and people, while wishing the new Japanese government all the best under Kishida’s leadership, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said in a news release.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
Taiwan and Japan are like-minded partners, demonstrated by the high volume of trade and people-to-people exchanges between the two nations, Chang said, adding that they also share the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law.
Japan is Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner, while Taiwan is Japan’s fourth-largest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Taiwan is also Japan’s third-largest source of foreign visitors, while Japan was Taiwan’s second-largest source of foreign visitors before the COVID-19 pandemic, it added.
Tsai also thanked Suga for his strong support of Taiwan during his tenure as prime minister, especially Tokyo’s five donations of COVID-19 vaccines, Chang said.
Tsai said she hopes the “circle of goodwill” between the two nations would continue under Japan’s new government, Chang said, adding that the government would continue to promote diversified cooperation with Japan, and jointly safeguard regional peace and prosperity for the benefit of the people of both nations.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching