Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

China bans individual travel to Taiwan

Taipei Times

People look at paper lanterns by the entrance of the Longshan Temple in Taipei’s Wanhua District on Jan. 25. Chinese tourists like to visit the temple because of its strong traditional atmosphere.
Photo: CNA

Beijing yesterday announced that starting today it is suspending a program that allowed individual tourists from 47 Chinese cities to travel to Taiwan, citing the current state of relations between the two sides.

Scandal casts shadow over NSB

Taipei Times

When President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last week returned from a trip to the nation’s Caribbean allies, some National Security Bureau (NSB) officials allegedly tried to take advantage of the presidential delegation’s rapid customs clearance treatment to smuggle more than 10,000 cartons of cigarettes into the nation, but the trucks carrying the contraband goods were seized trying to leave the airport.

The absurd scene was a repeat of another case, in which more than 39kg of cocaine was found last month in the luggage of a Brazilian military officer set to accompany Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

Hong Kong students in Kaohsiung collect helmets

Taipei Times

Second-hand helmets donated to help protect protesters in Hong Kong are collected in Taipei’s Xinyi District on Sunday by a group of Hong Kong students studying in Kaohsiung. A similar drive was held in Kaohsiung on Saturday.
Photo courtesy of Hong Kong Outlanders

A group of Hong Kongers studying in Kaohsiung on Saturday launched a helmet donation drive in support of anti-extradition bill protesters back home, and more than doubled their target of collecting 500 helmets within an hour, one of the organizers said yesterday.

Significance of Tsai’s US activities

Michael Lin 林正二

During President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) tour of Taiwan’s Caribbean diplomatic allies this month, she stopped over in the US, meeting with several US politicians as well as UN representatives. Tsai achieved a big diplomatic breakthrough, successfully persuading Washington to loosen the framework of the US’ “one China” policy.

For more than three decades, successive US governments have agreed to respect the “one China” policy and its three main tenets: an acknowledgment that there is only “one China,” the need for cross-strait dialogue and an agreement to reach a peaceful resolution.

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