President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) ranked ninth on Forbes magazine’s list of the most powerful women in the world, moving up 28 spots from last year’s ranking.
Forbes highlighted that Tsai became Taiwan’s first female and unmarried leader in 2016, and was re-elected last year with more than 57 percent of the popular vote.
The magazine said her re-election was a “rebuke to Beijing’s efforts to control the island.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Tsai has made protocol-breaking overtures to the US, which has created tensions with China, it said.
Forbes commended her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and her efforts in stimulating the economy with initiatives focused on biotechnology, defense and green energy to make Taiwan “an indispensable member of the world.”
Tsai made the list for the sixth-straight year since her first listing in 2016, when she was ranked 17th. Last year, she was 37th.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) president and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰), who was born in Tainan and migrated to the US as a child, ranked 49th on this year’s list.
Under Su, who trained as an electrical engineer, AMD’s stock price has risen more than 25-fold, Forbes said, adding that the company made one of the greatest turnarounds in the technology sector in the past few years.
US novelist and philanthropist Mackenzie Scott topped the list, after she in 2019 pledged to give away half of her wealth.
Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has thus far donated about US$8 billion to more than 500 nonprofit organizations, including US$2.74 billion granted to 286 groups in June, the magazine said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris ranked second, after she early last year was the first black and Asian-American woman to assume the second-highest office in the country, it said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS