HARMONY: A number of officials who would reportedly be replaced were not part of the reorganization, which the Cabinet spokesman attributed to good teamwork

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 24, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration yesterday announced a reshuffle of its

top national security, foreign affairs and cross-strait officials.

Presidential Office Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) is to replace Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維), who is to fill a vacancy left by National Security Council Secretary-General Yan Te-fa (嚴德發) after Yan becomes the minister of national defense.

Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Katharine Chang (張小月) is to be replaced by Chen Min-tong (陳明通), a professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development who headed the council from 2007 to 2008.

Due to health issues, Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu (林美珠) is to leave her post and be succeeded by Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春), while former chief of the general staff Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) is to take over the Veterans Affairs Council after Director Lee Shying-jow (李翔宙) departs.    [FULL  STORY]

Is the ‘happy company’ phenomenon a mask for deeper workplace dissatisfaction?

The News Lens
Date: 2018/02/22
By: TJ

Taiwanese workplaces are notorious for their low wages and long hours, but employees

are often satiated with small gestures aimed at creating a “happy company.”

The occasional cup of bubble tea or chocolate may provide a needed dopamine boost between spreadsheet sessions, but it also makes people more likely to accept poor working conditions. In this sense, employees themselves are equally complicit in depressing wages in Taiwan.

The “2018 Greater China Salary Guide” from HR firm Adecco has some startling statistics regarding Taiwan’s workplaces. Taiwanese office workers didn’t rank well in terms of pay or wage growth, but said they were most satisfied with the “benefits” provided by their company.    [FULL  STORY]

Plan could include cyber attack and assassinations in U.S.

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/02/22
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A study from a leading United States think tank describes how

China could approach and plan for a potential invasion of Taiwan, reports said Thursday.

In “Coping with Surprise in Great Power Conflicts” for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel, describes how wars can erupt by surprise and disrupt the best plans.

The report often refers to Russia and China, mentioning Chinese attacks on Taiwan and Vietnam as possible surprise conflicts.

In contrast to a popular view, Cancian is not certain that the U.S. will be fast enough to come to Taiwan’s aid.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiqwan
Date: 2018/02/22
By: Lu Hsin-hui, Wen Kui-hsiang, Yeh Su-ping, Joe Yeh and Shih 
Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, Feb. 23 (CNA) Taiwan’s Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) is to be

replaced by National Security Council Secretary-General Yen Teh-fa (嚴德發) in a cabinet reshuffle that is likely to be announced Friday.

Sources told CNA that the reshuffle will also see Labor Minister Lin Mei-chu (林美珠), who has tendered her resignation due to health reasons, replaced by Deputy Labor Minister Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊).

Feng has been serving as defense minister since President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration in May 2016. His stepping down comes amid increased military moves by China’s fighter jets and naval vessels near Taiwan, including exercises encircling the island from the air and the sea.

Shortly after Feng became defense minister, there was also an accidental firing of a missile into the Taiwan Strait, resulting in the death of a Taiwanese fisherman. Human error as well as insufficient oversight and unclear standard operating procedures were blamed for the incident.    [FULL  STORY]

NEW PERSPECTIVE: Declassified documents detail officials’ concerns that Chiang Kai-shek would dispatch more troops after the massacre, leading to further sanctioned bloodshed

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 23, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Declassified historical files retrieved from the archives of the US, Australia and the UN

would help to shed new light on the 228 Incident, historians said yesterday at the launch at the Academia Historica in Taipei of a book about the Incident.

International View of the 228 Incident (解密‧國際檔案的二二八事件) is an anthology of documents from the US National Archives and Records Administration, the National Archives of Australia and the UN Archives and Records Management Section seen last year at the request of the Kaohsiung Museum of History.

The museum requested that historians be allowed to access documents on post-World War II Taiwan, including international coverage of the Incident, Academia Historica said.

“The greatest impact the 228 Incident had on post-World War II Taiwan was that it sparked the Taiwanese independence movement,” said historian Su Yao-tsung (蘇瑤崇), a professor at Providence University, citing documents sourced from the US.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-02-21

President Tsai Ing-wen has welcomed a visiting delegation of US Senators to Taiwan.

While meeting the delegation on Wednesday, Tsai said that the friendship between Taiwan and the US highlights the values the two sides share. She said that the values of democracy, rule of law, and the free market can only be realized with the support of countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She also said that Taiwan-US friendship will remain intact as long as the two sides continue to defend their shared values.    [FULL  STORY]

Kaohsiung will struggle to get its oil-soaked soil back to baseline.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/02/21
By: Timothy Ferry

The CPC Corporation’s massive Kaohsiung refinery complex ceased operations in

December 2015 as promised by the state-owned oil company in 1990 (when it was known as the Chinese Petroleum Corp.). Then Premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) promised local residents who were protesting development of the Fifth Naphtha Cracker and its huge associated petrochemical complex that the entire operation would be closed in 25 years.

More than seven decades of continuous operation resulted in the refinery being more polluted than typical sites targeted for cleanup.

What remains today is one of Taiwan’s largest contaminated waste removal projects. The refinery, which encompasses 273 hectares in downtown Kaohsiung, had a daily refining capacity of 200,000 barrels of crude oil and an annual production capacity of 50,000 metric tons of petroleum products and their derivatives. The Kaohsiung facility was the longest operating refinery in Taiwan, having begun in 1937 by supplying the Imperial Japanese Navy.

More than seven decades of continuous operation resulted in the refinery being more polluted than typical sites targeted for cleanup. “Some of those pollutants that have been there for a long time are not easily degraded,” says Tsai Meng-yu, director-general of the Kaohsiung City Government Environmental Protection Bureau (KEPB).
[FULL  STORY]

Tsai’s Lunar New Year’s message may be a breath of hope for Taiwan, but important issues like in local politics need critical vigilance from the people

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/02/21
By: Christopher Rivera, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

On the eve of Lunar New Year, Feb. 15, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)

delivered a special message for the people of Taiwan from the Rainbow Hall, Presidential Office Building. Her message, which was uploaded on YouTube, focused on more blessings for the country in the year ahead and resiliency despite the tremendous earthquake that struck Hualien on Feb. 6.

The New Year’s message delivered must serve as a reminder for every Taiwanese person to act and contribute for the betterment of the country. However, as the saying goes “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” when it comes to the future for Taiwan in 2018, especially in political scene.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/21
By: Sophia Yeh and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Feb. 21 (CNA) Goodwill and constructive interaction between the two sides across the Taiwan Strait will be the key factors that determine where cross-strait ties are headed in the future, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Wednesday.

Speaking at a Lunar New Year luncheon for representatives of Taiwanese-invested companies in China, Tsai said all Taiwanese people, including those doing business on the mainland, care about peaceful development in cross-strait relations.

That is why she has pursued regional peace, stability and prosperity, in which “cross-strait relations play the most crucial role,” she said.

The pledges she made in her inaugural address on May 20, 2016 represent the greatest expression of goodwill and the “most powerful assurance” in the maintenance of cross-strait peace, stability and prosperity.    [FULL  STORY]