POLITICS
Hsiao Bi-khim in the US
Vice president-elect and former representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is in the US this week for a private visit, a senior Taiwanese official and a US spokesperson said on Tuesday. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), said China “firmly opposes” any form of official interaction between the US and Taiwan, and referred to Hsiao as “a diehard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist.” “We firmly oppose any visit by Hsiao Bi-khim to the US in any name or under whatever pretext,” Liu said, adding that the US should “not arrange any form of contact between the US government officials and Hsiao Bi-khim.” A Taiwanese official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Hsiao arrived in the US this week and is to spend the next few days there on a low-profile “personal trip” that includes packing up her personal belongings. The official declined to elaborate.
CRIME
Police raid nightclub
A total of 172 people were arrested on suspicion of drug offenses over the weekend when police raided a nightclub in Taichung that had been hosting illicit drug activities, police said on Tuesday. The raid was carried out at about 4am on Sunday at a nightclub inside the ASEAN Plaza, a multipurpose entertainment complex in the city’s Central District (中區), the Taichung Police Department’s First Precinct said. The suspects included the nightclub operator — a 32-year-old man identified by his last name Tu (杜) — a 34-year-old employee and a Vietnamese national surnamed Manh, police said. The 169 other suspects were nightclub patrons, who were also Vietnamese nationals, with 33 identified as migrant workers who are in the country illegally after leaving their legal jobs in Taiwan, police said. All of the 172 suspects were arrested at the scene and brought in for questioning, as police found a myriad of illicit drugs including 122 sachets of ketamine, it said. The suspects are being investigated on suspicion of drug related crimes, police said, adding that the National Immigration Agency has been notified about the 33 migrant workers.
CULTURE
Moon specimens in Taipei
A display of a lunar sample that former US president Richard Nixon gifted to Taiwan in 1969 has returned to the National Museum of History after being away for decades, the museum said on Monday. The wooden case display, containing four moon rock fragments encased inside a semi-sphere, was first exhibited at the museum in Taipei in 1970. The display and moon soil samples were then relocated to Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics for safekeeping, before they were given to Taichung’s National Museum of Natural Science in 1994. Those samples have returned to the Taipei museum and are part of a show marking its reopening on Feb. 21 after a nearly six-year renovation. The show is to run through April 28. In the display, the lunar specimens are mounted above a Republic of China flag, which was flown to the moon and back on the Apollo 11 mission by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. It also features two plaques, one of which reads: “Presented to the people of Republic of China by Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America.” The other says: “This Flag of your nation was carried to the Moon and back by Apollo 11 and this fragment of the Moon’s surface was brought to Earth by the crew of that first manned lunar landing.”
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi