US Senator Rick Scott arrived in Taiwan yesterday afternoon for a two-day visit.
Scott, who serves on the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, is the seventh US senator to visit Taiwan this year.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the Republican senator from Florida was greeted by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光).
Photo: REUTERS
Scott is scheduled to meet with President Tsai Ying-wen (蔡英文) and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) during his visit, the ministry said, adding that Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) was to host a banquet to welcome him.
Scott would also have a videoconference with Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Yang Jen-ni (楊珍妮), who is also deputy trade representative of the Office of Trade Negotiation, the ministry said.
The American Institute in Taiwan said that Scott’s visit was “part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region.”
“The senator will meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss US-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains, and other significant issues of mutual interest,” the institute said.
Scott, who served as Florida governor from 2011 to 2019, has proposed several Taiwan-friendly bills in the senate, including the draft Taiwan invasion prevention act and the draft deterring communist Chinese aggression against Taiwan through financial sanctions act, the ministry said.
The senator in May cosigned a letter penned by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, calling on US President Joe Biden to include Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, it said, adding that he has been supporter of a bilateral trade agreement between Taiwan and the US.
Scott visited the Taiwan Representative Office in Lithuania in April, becoming the first US senator to visit it, the ministry said.
In the same month, US senators Lindsey Graham, Bob Menendez, Richard Burr, Ben Sasse and Rob Portman, as well as US Representative Ronny Jackson, visited Taiwan and met with national security officials.
Another delegation led by US Senator Tammy Duckworth visited Taiwan in late May.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS