Taiwan Today
Date: April 12, 2016

Premier Chang San-cheng met with Premier-designate Lin Chuan April 8 in

Premier Chang San-cheng (right) welcomes Premier-designate Lin Chuan before their meeting at the Cabinet April 8 in Taipei City. (Courtesy of Executive Yuan)

Taipei City, sharing commitment to cooperating on administrative affairs, budget and personnel in the lead up to the May 20 handover of power.

“We have confidence in the incoming Cabinet’s ability to tackle the challenges Taiwan is facing,” Chang said before the hourlong meeting, expressing his respect and good wishes to his successor. “I expect Lin and his team to deliver outstanding performance in the years ahead.”

In terms of administrative affairs, Lin aims to initiate in-depth exchanges so the new government of President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party can take over seamlessly.

According to Cabinet Spokesman Sun Lih-chyun, efforts in this regard have already begun, with the Executive Yuan delivering briefings on each ministry’s affairs to the government transition task force.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/12
By: Tang Pei-chun and Lilian Wu

Taipei, April 12 (CNA) Taiwan is indignant that Kenya police brandished submachine guns and tear gas to force 37 Taiwan nationals suspected of phone fraud to board a plane bound for China on Tuesday.

Considering the move a violation of Taiwan’s jurisdiction over its nationals, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a strong protest to Nairobi after its efforts to block the move failed.

It came just days after Kenya handed over eight Taiwan nationals, who were acquitted by a Kenyan court of operating telecommunications equipment without a license on April 5, to China by putting them on a China Southern Airlines flight to China on April 8.

Antonio Chen (陳俊賢), director-general of MOFA’s Department of West Asian and African Affairs, said he was notified at 3 a.m. Tuesday that Kenyan police intended to send 22 Taiwan nationals arrested on April 8 and 15 others also acquitted by the Kenyan court.     [FULL  STORY]

mySA
Date: April 11, 2016

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, reportedly wants a more robust approach to China, including more assertive freedom-

Photo: Bullit Marquez, AP

of-navigation operations such as helicopter flights and intelligence-gathering within 12 miles (19 kilometers) of Chinese-controlled features.

So far, U.S. Navy ships have twice sailed close to Chinese-controlled islands. However, critics say those maneuvers amounted to innocent passage, during which foreign vessels do not stop or carry out activities that might be perceived as hostile.
The Navy Times quoted defense officials as saying the White House is discouraging strong rhetoric by military leaders on the South China Sea. It reported that National Security Adviser Susan Rice on March 18 imposed a gag order on military leaders over South China Sea comments in the run-up to the nuclear summit in Washington that ended April 1.

“The White House’s aversion to risk has resulted in an indecisive policy that has failed to deter China’s pursuit of maritime hegemony while confusing and alarming our regional allies and partners,” Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

Harris declined to comment on the report, according to the Navy Times.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking in Washington, said that Beijing respects freedom of navigation and overflight but will defend its sovereignty in the South China Sea. Xi said China won’t accept any act disguised as freedom of navigation that violates its security.     [FULL  STORY]

It’s not about separating from mainland China. It’s about nation-building.

Foreign Policy
Date: April 11, 2016
By: Chieh-Ting Yeh

On February 23, all eyes were on Taiwan’s new Member of Parliament Freddy Lim as he took the podium at the Legislative Yuan for the first time. Lim is now best known as the heavy metal rock star who, following January 2016 elections on the self-governing island of 23 million, became one of five legislators from the nascent New Power Party. A long-time advocate of international recognition for Taiwan and a famous figure among proponents of Taiwan independence, Lim’s first time deposing outgoing Kuomintang Prime Minister Chang Shan-cheng over the legal statehood of Taiwan and China was civil, but provocative: by the end of the session, Chang had admitted that the Republic of China (ROC) regime currently ruling Taiwan is a separate state from the People’s Republic of China.

Video clips and reports of Lim’s session were widely circulated, with headlines like “Freddy Says ‘I am for Taiwan Independence.’” While pro-independence advocates may have applauded Lim’s performance, the response from other quarters has been mixed. Tsay Ting-kuei, a professor at National Taiwan University and a long-time hardliner on Taiwan independence who founded the pro-independence Free Taiwan Party, took to on Facebook, Taiwan’s social network of choice, to insist that the New Power Party stands for “ROC independence,” or huadu, and not Taiwan independence, or taidu.

Within the past year, the term “ROC independence” has come into vogue within political discourse in Taiwan. It holds that Taiwan is already an independent state, named the Republic of China. This position is different from the “Taiwan independence” position, which insists that Taiwan is not an independent state unless the Republic of China regime is overthrown and replaced by the Republic of Taiwan.     [FULL  STORY]