A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that the government is planning to open a representative in Montreal, Canada, in the first half of next year.
Preparations for Taiwan’s fourth representative office in Canada are under way, Department of North American Affairs Director-General Douglas Hsu (徐佑典) said.
Taiwan’s main representative office is in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, with branch offices in Toronto and Vancouver.
Photo: AP
“We hope we can see a positive development on the project in the first half of next year,” Hsu told reporters during a news conference.
The ministry first announced the office on Tuesday, but did not say when it would open.
A source familiar with the matter yesterday said that the ministry has identified four potential sites an office Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city.
The office — to be named the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Montreal — is to employ about 10 staff, similar to the branch offices in Toronto and Vancouver, the source said.
Canada’s swift approval of the Montreal office is part of the greater attention that Ottawa is giving to Taiwan as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, released last month, the source said.
The Canadian strategy document refers to Taiwan multiple times, including working with Indo-Pacific partners to push back against any unilateral actions threatening the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China seas.
Montreal, the largest city in the French-speaking province of Quebec, is known as a technology hub, notably in video game and artificial intelligence development. The city is also home to the International Civil Aviation Organization headquarters.
Taiwan has 111 overseas representative offices, including embassies and consulates in the 14 countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei.
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
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘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