Civil engineering industry leader Shih Yi-fang (施義芳) said he held firm in upholding the nation’s dignity on the international stage by successfully rectifying his credentials as representing Taiwan, not “a province of China,” at a UN-related professional engineers’ conference in Prague.
Shih had registered to attend this year’s World Engineers Convention (WEC), from Monday last week to Sunday, organized by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO).
The WFEO is a UNESCO group that is the leading organization for the worldwide engineering profession, with more than 30 million members from more than 100 countries, its Web site says.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Institute of Engineers
Taiwan’s professional engineering association on Wednesday said in a news release that Shih had arrived in Prague and headed to the event site to obtain his credentials to participate as a member in this year’s WEC events.
Shih is the chairman of CECI Engineering Consultants, Taiwan, the director of the Taiwan Professional Civil Engineers’ Association and has served one term as a legislator-at-large from 2016 to 2020.
“When receiving my credentials from the secretariat, I found that Taiwan was denigrated by being listed as a province of China,” Shih said.
A photograph provided by Taiwan’s engineers’ association showed “Taiwan, China” printed on the originally issued badge.
“For years, I have represented Taiwan, visiting many countries, attending international meetings and also pushing to hold these big events in Taiwan, but we were often denied due to pressure from China,” Shih said.
“This time I represented Taiwan by attending the worldwide convention of professional engineers and we have again come under pressure,” he said. “To uphold our nation’s dignity, I would not accept such denigration again… So I protested and made my case, and succeeded in getting the credential changed to Taiwan.”
“In the past, when registering...it usually took less than 15 minutes to complete and receive my delegate’s badge. This time we had to wait for WEC organizers to meet to discuss it, so it took some time,” Shih said.
“At the time, I was anxious, because I could not enter to discuss it in person, and was unsure of the outcome,” he said. “Fortunately, the result was what I had hoped.”
“From my experience, when we protest such matters, whether it success depends on the host country’s organizers. Taiwanese delegates attended an international engineers’ meeting in Russia, and they could not get a name change despite raising the issue, and they got so angry that they left the meeting in protest,” he added.
Shih said he was happy with the outcome.
“We have not degraded our nation’s dignity, and we thank the host country organizers for having a good understanding of this issue,” he said.
The main theme of this year’s WEC is “Engineering for Life: Breakthrough Technologies and Capacity Development.”
The convention is a leading platform for engineers from around the world, who give presentations and exchange ideas, resembling a mini-UN forum with more than 100 professional engineers’ associations from more than 80 countries.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS