PENGHU INSPECTION: Taiwan cannot let its enemies strut around in its airspace, Tsai said, one day after a Chinese spokesman denied a median line exists in the Taiwan Strait
Following China’s assertion on Monday that there is no “median line” in the Taiwan Strait, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday pledged to defend the nation’s airspace during a visit to an air force base in Penghu, saying that Taiwan cannot allow others to flex their military muscle in its territorial airspace. Tsai praised the “heroic performance” of the pilots of the Indigenous Defense Fighters who have been intercepting Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force planes in recent days. “I have a lot of confidence in you. As soldiers of the Republic of China [ROC], how could we let enemies strut
Swedish Member of Parliament Hampus Hagman is pushing for changing the name of the nation’s trade office in Taipei to signal improved relations with “Asia’s perhaps foremost democracy.” Hagman on Wednesday last week proposed renaming the Swedish Trade and Invest Council to “Sweden’s Office in Taipei,” following similar changes by other nations. The Swedish Trade and Invest Council, part of Business Sweden, is owned by the Swedish government and Swedish industry. Taiwan and Sweden share important values such as respect for democracy, human rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech, Hagman said in the motion, adding that the two nations
EFFICIENCY: The rules for Philippine arrivals were revised after 17.6% of arrivals with symptoms tested positive, compared with 0.7% of those with no symptoms
Starting today, Chinese spouses who hold a reunion permit can apply to enter Taiwan and travelers without symptoms from the Philippines do not need to be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival, but are to be tested after a 14-day quarantine, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that from today, Chinese who are married to a Taiwanese citizen and hold a reunion permit can apply to the National Immigration Agency for entry into Taiwan. Chinese who are married to a foreign national and hold an accompanied reunion permit
FATAL FIRE: The health department is trying to contact the inspector who visited the site of the illegal nursing home to ask why they did not advise follow-up checks
The Taipei City Government yesterday said that a health department inspector last year had visited the site of a long-term care facility in Neihu District (內湖) after receiving a report questioning its status. A fire broke out at the facility on Tuesday afternoon, killing three people. The Taipei Fire Department said that it received a report about a fire on the first floor of a four-story residential building on Kangning Road Sec. 1 at 2:38pm on Tuesday, firefighters arrived at 2:43pm and the fire was put out by 3:07pm. The firefighters found three men in beds and rushed them to hospital for
CONSOLIDATION? Taiwan Thinktank deputy executive-general Doong Sy-chi said Beijing’s intimidation tactics are further alienating those who identify as Chinese
Only 2 percent of respondents to a poll on constitutional amendments and national identity identified as Chinese, while 62.6 percent identified as Taiwanese, the Taiwan Thinktank said yesterday. Legislators have proposed amendments to the Additional Articles of the Constitution (憲法增修條文), which would change the definition of the nation’s territory, remove the Taiwan Provincial Government as an entity, prioritize the use of “Taiwan” for national groups at international events, and remove restrictions on defining the national emblem, national flag and national anthem. The poll showed that 80.5 percent of respondents agreed that the nation should participate as “Taiwan” at events organized by world
BALANCED DEVELOPMENT: TSMC chairman Mark Liu said the firm is committed to local investment: a third in the north, a third in the center, a third in the south
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that, based on its strategy of balancing capacity, it plans to make northern Taiwan its manufacturing hub for advanced technologies that go beyond 2 nanometers. “As the company is committed to investing in Taiwan, we try to deploy one-third [of our total production capacity] in the north and have one-third each in the center and south” of the nation, TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told reporters on the sidelines of Semicon Taiwan’s Master Forum in Taipei. TSMC last year reached its goal of deploying capacity equally across those parts
Late last month, Beijing introduced changes to school curricula in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, requiring certain subjects to be taught in Mandarin rather than Mongolian. What is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) seeking to gain from sending this message of pernicious intent? It is possible that he is attempting cultural genocide in Inner Mongolia, but does Xi also have the same plan for the democratic, independent nation of Mongolia? The controversy emerged with the announcement by the Inner Mongolia Education Bureau on Aug. 26 that first-grade elementary-school and junior-high students would in certain subjects start learning with Chinese-language textbooks, as
China’s air force has released a video showing nuclear-capable H-6 bombers carrying out a simulated attack on what appears to be Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The video, released on Saturday on People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) Sina Weibo (微博) account, came as China carried out a second day of drills near Taiwan to express Beijing’s anger at the visit of a senior US Department of State official to Taipei. Guam is home to major US military facilities, including the air base. The PLAAF’s 2 minute, 15 second video, titled The god of war H-6K goes on the attack!, is set
For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China’s “century of humiliation” is the gift that keeps on giving. Beijing returns again and again to the theme of Western imperialism, oppression and exploitation to keep stoking the embers of grievance and resentment against the West, and especially the US. However, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that in 1949 announced it had “stood up” soon made clear what that would mean for Chinese and the world — and it was not an agenda that would engender pride among ordinary Chinese, or peace of mind in the international community. At home, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) launched
XINJIANG MODEL? Researcher Adrian Zenz calls the program a coercive change from nomadism and farming, and targeted attack on traditional Tibetan livelihoods
China is pushing growing numbers of Tibetan rural laborers off the land and into recently built military-style training centers where they are turned into factory workers, mirroring a program in Xinjiang that rights groups have branded coercive labor. Beijing has set quotas for the mass transfer of rural laborers within Tibet and to other parts of China, according to more than 100 state media reports, policy documents from government bureaus in Tibet and procurement requests released between 2016 and this year and reviewed by Reuters. The quota effort marks a rapid expansion of an initiative designed to provide loyal workers for
DEFENSE ONLY: After China’s recent incursions, Taiwan wants to prevent its pilots from doing anything to accidentally trigger a cross-strait war, a military source said
Chinese military aircraft approaching Taiwan over the past two days demonstrates that Beijing is a threat to the entire region, and has shown Taiwanese even more clearly the true nature of China’s government, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday. Multiple Chinese aircraft flew across the median line of the Taiwan Strait and into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Friday and Saturday. The Ministry of National Defense scrambled jets to intercept them. Beijing on Friday announced combat drills near the Strait and denounced what it called collusion between the nation and the US. The exercises took place while US Undersecretary of
Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Monday called for security improvements to the MRT, as fare evasion has increased more than 13-fold on the metropolitan railway system over the past five years. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has spoken out against fare evasion and other contraventions of MRT regulations, but since he took office in 2015 the number of contraventions has more than doubled, Wang said, adding that there were 537 cases in 2015 compared with 959 last year. A video was posted to YouTube in June showing people how to evade paying a fare,
‘AGGRESSIVE AND DESTABILIZING’: Calling China’s incursions an attempt to ‘rewrite history,’ a US official said that Beijing was using its military ‘as a tool of coercion’
A fleet of 19 Chinese military aircraft yesterday morning flew into Taiwan’s airspace in a pincer formation, marking the second consecutive day of such incursions, the Ministry of National Defense said. Taiwan’s military responded by scrambling jets, issuing radio warnings, and mobilizing surveillance and air defense systems, the ministry said. The Chinese aircraft fleet comprised 12 J-16 multirole strike fighters, two J-10 lightweight fighters, two J-11 air superiority fighters, two H-6 strategic bombers and a Y-8 transport plane, the ministry said. A ministry chart showed that the J-10 and J-11 fighters crossed the median line in the northern part of the Taiwan Strait,
FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD: Media speculation has fueled confusion about the KMT’s reasons for skipping a Chinese forum and delaying an AIT meeting, party sources said
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday said that it is not seeking to improve relations with the US or China at the expense of the other, and that its relations with the countries would be topic-based. The party has faced questions over its foreign policy after it on Monday last week announced its withdrawal from the annual Straits Forum and delayed planned talks with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The party has also taken a tough stance on the importation of US meat containing ractopamine, while also lambasting China for increasing its military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. Following
There are worrying signs that China is on the brink of a major food shortage, which might trigger a strategic contest over food security and push Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), already under intense pressure, toward drastic measures, potentially spelling trouble for Taiwan and the rest of the world. China has encountered a perfect storm of disasters this year. On top of disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, torrential rains have caused catastrophic flooding in the Yangtze River basin, China’s largest agricultural region. Floodwaters are estimated to have already destroyed the crops on 6 million hectares of farmland. The situation has been
EPITOME OF TAIWAN: Shinzo Abe and the Dalai Lama were both represented at the memorial, with the latter saying he admired Lee for ‘protecting Taiwan’s democracy’
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), senior government officials and dignitaries from the US and Japan yesterday paid tribute to the man who led Taiwan’s transition to democracy, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). Lee, an agricultural economist and politician who devoted his career to building democracy in Taiwan through direct elections and helping create a Taiwanese identity distinct from that of China, passed away on July 30 aged 97. The main service, held yesterday morning at the chapel of Aletheia University in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), was attended by nearly 800 people, including government officials, Lee’s relatives and friends, members of the
President Tsai ing-wen (蔡英文) and Taiwanese gay rights advocate Chi Chia-wei (祁家威) have been included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world this year. It was released on Tuesday. In an introduction on Tsai, US Senator Ted Cruz praised her as “a signal lamp casting out China’s looming shadow, conveying to the world that Taiwan will not acquiesce to the Chinese Communist Party.” “While Taiwan stands a mere 100 miles [161km] from mainland China, under President Tsai’s leadership, it is neither adrift, nor drawn in,” Cruz wrote. “Freedom is its North Star, which has been clear in
A Philippine charter flight arrived at Pingtung County’s Hengchun Airport yesterday morning as part of a trial run on resuming passenger operations at the facility, the first passenger jet to land at the airport since 2014. The Dornier 328-110 turboprop from Platinum Skies Aviation departed Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport and arrived at Hengchun at 10:39am. As part of the government’s COVID-19 prevention efforts, the pilots were asked to stay on the plane, and keep the cabin doors closed and the engines running during their 50-minute stopover. Pingtung County Commissioner Pan Men-an (潘孟安) was at the airport to watch the
Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem. Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday. The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up
RSS