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One of the top stories from this past week was that former President Ma Ying-jeou says he is stunned and disappointed that a recent application for permission to travel to Hong Kong was rejected.
Ma left office on May 20. In January, before he left office, Ma was invited to speak on June 15 at an event in Hong Kong hosted by a publisher’s association. The topic of his speech was to be the state of cross-strait relations after his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last year.
According to Taiwan’s Classified National Security Information Protection Act, Ma needs approval from the current administration in order to leave the country. That’s because presidents have access to classified information during their tenure. The application was not approved, in part because Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of Mainland China and therefore seen as sensitive.
In the end, Ma delivered his address in a video played at the publishers’ event.
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Also this past week, President Tsai Ing-wen’s first overseas trip will be to Taiwan’s Latin American allies Panama and Paraguay next week.
Tsai departs Taiwan on June 24 and will arrive in Panama on June 25. On June 26, she will attend the inauguration of the Panama Canal Expansion. She will travel to Paraguay from June 27 to June 30 and return from her nine-day trip on July 2. On her way to and from Latin America, she will transit in Miami and Los Angeles in the United States.
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And finally, this past week, President Tsai Ing-wen expressed her condolences following a horrific attack at a gay night club in Orlando, Florida.
A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 50 others in the early hours of Sunday morning, local time. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history.
US President Barack Obama has said that while it is still early in the investigation, “we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate.”
In Taiwan, President Tsai condemned the attack and conveyed her condolences to the victims and their families.