Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/09
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

THAAD. The abbreviation of the little-known term “Terminal High Altitude Area Defense”

forced the closure of supermarkets in China. For once, it is not anger at a perceived Taiwan Independence statement by a Taiwanese entertainer or at a politician’s refusal to mention the “1992 Consensus” which is ruffling Beijing’s feathers.

The unexpected culprit is South Korea, which decided to deploy the American-made system in a response to the numerous missile launches, nuclear tests and other provocations by its communist-ruled neighbor, North Korea.

Despite repeated assertions by both Seoul and Washington that all the system is designed to do, is to take down missiles emanating from the cantankerous north, it is China that has reacted with the most fury.    [FULL  STORY]

While Taiwan is spending time and energy on raising awareness of social issues, Taiwanese have been neglecting the importance of cultivating, through education, both local and international cultural sensitivity.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/12/29
By: Eric Tsai

Marriage equality has been one of the biggest topics in Taiwan in the past month as the country is on the

verge of becoming the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage; this past Monday, the marriage equality bill passed a committee review in the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s Parliament.

However, on Dec. 14, a report by U.K. market research company Ipsos MORI shows that Taiwan is the third most ignorant country out of the 40 evaluated, only behind India and China. After the report was released, a group of high school students dressed up in Nazi uniform to celebrate the school’s anniversary. The series of events bears the question: how can Taiwan be ignorant but also progressive?

Progressive
(of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.

-Oxford Dictionary

It seems Taiwanese people do not know themselves and their future well enough. One question asked in the IPSOS report reads: “When asked in a survey in [country], what percentage of people do you think said they personally believe that homosexuality is morally unacceptable?”

Survey takers believed that 47 percent of Taiwan believe homosexuality is morally unacceptable when in actuality only 22 percent of survey takers believed homosexuality is morally unacceptable. This was the lowest amongst all the Asian countries in this survey, with Japan and Hong Kong taking second and third with 31 percent and 32 percent. The rest of the Asian countries were all more than 50 percent.   [FULL  STORY]

Editorial
Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-12
By: Cli Square, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The recent conflict between the capital and labor in Taiwan is centered on the issue of “overworking” and “disparate treatment” of the labor force on the surface, but the root cause is really the fact that “Taiwanese bosses are not satisfied with their employees, while the country’s workers do not like their bosses either.”

In fact, everyone wants to be able to live, and every enterprise wants to be able to sustain.

In order to live, individuals have to work to make money whether they are “blue-collar” or “white-collar” workers.

And for enterprises, they have to make profits in order to sustain. Besides paying for employees’ salaries, enterprises also have to pay for utilities in the working environments, rents for the working spaces, office supplies, costs of management and accounting, etc. Therefore, profits are made after the expenditure is deducted from the income. So an employee has to contribute to the company’s income at least 1.5 times of his or her salary to benefit the company. If you are a boss, you will think the same way, too.     [FULL  STORY]

EDITORIAL
Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-01
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

President Tsai Ing-wen recently marked her 100th day in office as Taiwan’s first woman head of state and her 60th birthday, though neither gave her much cause for joy and happiness, if you have to believe local media.

On Wednesday, her official birthday, Taiwan Indicators Survey Research published an opinion poll showing Tsai was caught in a “death cross,” an ominous-sounding term which indicates that the number of her detractors is growing to become larger than the number of those satisfied with her government.

A similar phenomenon hit Premier Lin Chuan earlier in the month, but perhaps that was only to be expected, considering that under Taiwan’s constitutional system, the premier and his Cabinet are often in the firing line for every kind of government decision.

There is a reason why both previous presidents, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party and Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang, each used up six premiers during their eight years in power.     [FULL  STORY]

EDITORIAL
Date: 2016-08-25
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The capital of Taiwan and the most populated city in China managed to get together and hold a joint forum. In itself not a historic achievement, considering the forum took place before.

Even last year, after independent Ko Wen-je had been elected and taken office as mayor of Taipei, the forum went ahead, despite Chinese doubts about the new mayor’s “ideological tendencies.”

It would sound more than normal that after taking place in Shanghai last year, the forum moved back to Taipei this year, yet it was still regarded as no mean achievement.

The main reason for that is that it was the first and most high-level cross-straits event to take place in Taiwan since Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen was elected president last January 16 and took office with her administration on May 20.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
EDITORIAL
Date: 2016-07-21
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

A tour bus drives on a freeway for more than 1 kilometer with smoke billowing out of its side. It then hits a railing on one side of the road before crashing into the railing on the other side and bursting into a sea of flames and black smoke.

That strange situation occurred in Taoyuan City last Tuesday, and 26 people lost their lives as a result. The driver, a Taiwanese tour guide, a Chinese guide, and 23 tourists, including three teenagers.

The fact that the tourists all came from China turned the disaster into an international event and also focused attention on why Taiwan seems to have turned into a particularly deadly destination for Chinese visitors.

Since 2008, more than 80 Chinese citizens died in a variety of traffic accidents in Taiwan, an average of ten per year, and more than 100 were injured. While serious traffic accidents happen in every country, the number involving Chinese tourists in Taiwan has been surprisingly high.     [FULL  STORY]