RED-HANDED:Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen condemned the protest early yesterday — led by the Taiwan Solidarity Union — as an ‘act of violence’

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2015
By: Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) members in the early hours of yesterday staged a protest

outside the presidential residence ahead of China’s scheduled inauguration of the controversial M503 flight route today.

Protesters shouted: “Withdraw the M503 flight route” and “President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), step down.”

Loud screams broke the quiet night near the presidential residence when several men and women holding protest signs arrived by van and motorcycle, and ran toward the entrance gate on Chongqing S Road in Taipei.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-28
By: CNA

A group of demonstrators splashed paint on a gate of Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou’s official

residence late Friday to protest against China’s plan to launch a new commercial flight path close to Taiwan.

The incident occurred as 12 protesters gathered outside the residence on Friday night. All 12 protesters were immediately arrested by police.

They were from the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union and had originally planned to attack the Executive Yuan or Presidential Office that night. Their attempts, however, were unsuccessful because the police had obtained related information in advance and heightened their alert.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/03/28
By: Eva Feng and Lilian Wu

Boao, China, March 28 (CNA) Former Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) expressed Taiwan’s intent to participate in regional economic integration and join the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) during a brief meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Saturday.

Siew, the head of Taiwan’s delegation at the Boao Forum as honorary chairman of the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation, met Xi for about five minutes prior to the opening of the forum in Hainan province.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-27
By: CNA

Recent comments by Chinese president Xi Jinping indicate that China’s bottom line ahead of

Taiwan’s 2016 presidential election is “one China,” a senior member of a US think tank said Tuesday.

“I think Xi Jinping was trying to make clear that although he mentioned the 1992 Consensus, his bottom line was ‘one China,'” said Douglas Paal, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on Tuesday.

Xi said on March 4 that if the consensus, which forms the political basis between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, is damaged, mutual trust will be hurt, and cross-strait relations will return to a path of turbulence.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-27
By: CNA

Air quality and traffic safety are the two issues of greatest concern among foreign nationals

living in Taiwan, according to a poll released Thursday.

The 2014 Quality of Living Survey, conducted jointly by the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) and market research firm TNS, suggested that only 38% of the expatriates in Taiwan think that the country’s air quality is good, a steep decline from 63% in 2011.

Traffic safety is also a major concern, as most foreign nationals think that Taiwan’s roads are unsafe for all users, according to the survey.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/03/27
By: Chiu Chun-chin, Huang Chiao-wen, Chang Jung-hsiang, Chen Chao-fu
and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, March 27 (CNA) Drought-affected Taoyuan, a municipality in northern Taiwan, received some much-needed rain Friday, which helped raise the water level of its main Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫), a little, to 22.68 percent of its capacity as of noon.

Water levels of other reservoirs in northern and central Taiwan areas also rose, but the added amount at some reservoirs, such as Yongheshan Reservoir (永和山水庫), Liyutan Reservoir (鯉魚潭水庫) and Mingte Reservoir (明德水庫) in Miaoli, as well as Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) in Chiayi, were too small to raise their water levels to higher than the 30 percent mark.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-27
By: CNA

Taiwan’s advantage over China in term of air defense may have been lost as the People’s

Liberation Army recently added a fleet of new airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft to its Air Force, a global defense magazine reported Thursday.

Referring to photographs that were released on a Chinese online military forum, the magazine IHS Jane’s 360 said the Chinese Air Force has commissioned its newly developed KJ-500 AWACS aircraft to bolster its air superiority capabilities.     [FULL  STORY]

CHINA-LED BANK:The former vice president has been instructed by President Ma to declare Taiwan’s interest in joining the regional institution when he meets Xi Jinping

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 28, 2015
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan  /  Staff reporter

Former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) yesterday said that he would express Taiwan’s

interest in taking part in the emerging Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the China-led regional financial institution, when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) today, according to a report.

Siew, head of Taiwan’s delegation to this year’s Boao Forum for Asia in China’s Hainan Province, told reporters he is to meet Xi at 9:20am today, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

Siew was quoted by the CNA as saying that Taiwan should be part of the AIIB and that he would “make a case for it whenever I have the chance to speak to China’s leaders.”     [FULL  STORY]

Service Interruptions

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Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-26
By: CNA

China has expressed approval of an idea from former vice president Vincent Siew of Taiwan to

hold a cross-Taiwan Strait forum in Kinmen, based on the approach of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), according to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing.

Siew’s proposal of using Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island group off the coast of southern China, as a platform for cultural exchanges between the two sides of the strait, could help promote mutual understanding between the people of the two sides, Fan said at the office’s regular press conference Wednesday.

Minnan culture is the folk culture jointly shared by people in China’s Fujian province and in Taiwan, and is also “the most important part of Chinese culture,” Fan said.     [FULL  STORY]