NINE NEW CASES: The CECC said two locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, and seven imported ones – five women and two men – brought the nation’s total to 348

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 04, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

People who refuse to wear a mask on public transportation after being asked to do so would face a NT$3,000 to NT$15,000 fine, effective immediately, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday after announcing nine additional COVID-19 cases.

In a move to curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications on Tuesday announced that people must wear masks on trains and intercity buses, while Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, on Tuesday said that people should wear them when they cannot maintain a social distance of 1.5m indoors.

Chen yesterday added that the government would fine those who do not wear masks on public transportation after being asked to, citing the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法).Service personnel at Taiwan Railways Administration and High-Speed Rail stations from Tuesday have been directing people to convenience stores to buy masks if they do not have one, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), who is also deputy head of the center.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 02 April, 2020
By: John Van Trieste
 

Taiwan has so far managed to keep COVID-19 in check without resorting to measures like the lockdowns seen in some other parts of the world. But allowing life to go on as normal doesn’t mean allowing life to go on exactly as it did before the pandemic began.

 

In public spaces across Taiwan, new rules are entering into force that aim to let people keep moving around freely while also keeping them safe and healthy. Some of the most stringent of these new rules are going into place in highway rest stops, places where large number of strangers from all over Taiwan come into close contact every day.    [FULL  STORY]

Breitbrt
Date: 2 Apr 20203
By: Gabrielle Reyes

Chinese state media reported on Wednesday the national military command responsible for patrols around Taiwan staged a long-endurance, early-warning exercise in March.

A warplane conducted unspecified tactical acrobatics immediately after taking off, a maneuver not commonly seen in previous drills. It was intended to simulate quickly countering enemy planes during wartime, according to the plane’s captain. The Chinese government claimed the plane performed surveillance work and tested airborne strikes. Joining the plane’s exercises was a combat drill by Chinese fighter jets. According to the report, the drill lasted for about 36 hours.

The exercise follows previous Chinese military drills near Taiwan in recent months, at a time in which Taiwan’s government has focused heavily on containing the growing Chinese coronavirus pandemic and received international praise for its successful handling and containment of the disease.

Apparently frustrated by this success, China – which considers the independent country a renegade province – has regularly carried out military maneuvers to place pressure on Taiwan. 
[FULL  STORY]

Individuals who discard masks on street subject to fine of NT$3,600-6,000: EPA

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/02
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taipei City Government announced Thursday (April 2) that individuals who report mask littering to the authorities would receive compensation while the people responsible for the offense would be fined NT$3,600-6,000 (US$120-200).

As face masks have become daily necessities due to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, more cases of mask littering have also been seen across the country. Many individuals have continued to ignore the government's constant reminders and dispose of their masks improperly, according to UDN.

To discourage such behavior, the Cabinet's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Sunday (March 29) announced that individuals who caught discarding their face masks on the streets would be subject to an NT$1,200-6,000 fine. However, following further discussion amongst EPA officials, the minimum fine for mask littering has now been raised to NT$3,600.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/02/2020
By: Chiang Yi-ching

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung / Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center

Taipei, April 2 (CNA) Ten new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease were confirmed in Taiwan Thursday, bringing the total in the country to 339 since the pandemic began late last year, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The newly confirmed patients are all Taiwanese nationals, eight of whom contracted the disease overseas and two who were infected locally, said Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the CECC.

One of the local infections, a man in his 50s, likely contracted COVID-19 from case No. 291, a Taiwanese man who went on vacation to Indonesia and tested positive for the disease on March 29, according to the CECC.

The man, who began showing symptoms on March 23 and made several trips to the doctor's, visited the doctor again on March 31 after finding out about case No. 291's diagnosis. He was sent to a negative pressure isolation room for testing that day and was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 on Thursday, the CECC said.    [FULL  STORY]

TRILLION PROPOSED: The premier said the goal was to keep ‘businesses solvent, the unemployment rate down, transportation and logistics going, and cash flowing’

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 03, 2020
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

The Executive Yuan yesterday announced an expanded economic stimulus package totaling NT$1.05 trillion (US$34.64 billion), including NT$81.6 billion in subsidies for employers to prevent a spike in unemployment.

The increased budget comprises a special budget of NT$210 billion, up from the NT$60 billion already passed by the Legislative Yuan; NT$140 billion — up from NT$40 billion — to be appropriated from the general budget; and NT$700 billion in loans to industries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei.

The NT$150 billion increase in the special budget is to be paid for by increasing national debt by NT$100 billion in the current fiscal year and NT$50 billion in the next, Chu said.

The NT$700 billion in loans, double what was originally planned, is to be provided by the central bank and state-owned banks, as well as Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政), he said.   [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date:\ 01 April, 2020
By:\ Shirley Lin

US Senator Cory Gardner says that the US should do all it can to counter China’s attempts to block Taiwan’s contributions to the world.

Gardner said China has been blocking Taiwan from taking part in international organizations. He said that the COVID-19 pandemic makes Taiwan’s participation in WHO meetings more crucial than ever.    [FULL  STORY]

The Jamestown Foundation
Date: April 1, 2020
By:: John Dotson

On March 31, 2019 two PLAAF J-11 fighters crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait (an unofficial boundary, but one traditionally observed by military aircraft from each side), the first such reported incident since 2011. This prompted a scramble by ROCAF fighters and a sharp response from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen (蔡英文), who vowed the “forceful expulsion” of PLA aircraft repeating this action in the future (SCMP, April 1, 2019).

The end of 2019 saw another significant development for naval aviation in the region, when the PLA Navy (PLAN)’s first indigenously-designed carrier SHANDONG (山东舰) (CV-17) was commissioned in mid-December 2019 at Sanya Naval Base on the southern Chinese island province of Hainan (Xinhua, December 17, 2019; Japan Times, December 18, 2019). On December 26, SHANDONG sailed through the Taiwan Strait in the course of conducting local-area training and sea trials (USNI, December 26, 2019). The transit was of limited importance in terms of demonstrating operational proficiency, but it was a symbolically powerful statement of the PRC’s growing naval strength and assertiveness towards Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

What will it take for the US to truly confront PRC?

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/01
By: William A. Stanton, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

The United States’ relations with the PRC have inexorably but inevitably worsened since the accession to power of Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2012.

We have witnessed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) increasing arrogance and aggression both at home and abroad; its imprisonment of a million or more Uighurs in labor camps; its crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong; its suppression of all unorthodox views on domestic issues; its arrest of foreigners as hostages; and its clear ambition to upend the global economic and security order that the U.S. established at the end of World War II—from which the Chinese government itself benefitted.

PRC’s tactics have included bullying of other countries; seizure of islands and their militarization in the South China Sea; debt traps for poor countries; taking control of the UN agencies; blatant espionage directed at U.S. bases and elsewhere; the expulsion of U.S. journalists working for the most prominent newspapers in America; efforts to reshape the worldwide internet in accordance with CCP preferences; massive intellectual property theft, and threats to cut off supply chains of Chinese products on which we depend, including rare earth elements and pharmaceuticals. Although the PRC has voted for UN sanctions against North Korea and Iran to inhibit their nuclear and missile programs, it is evident the PRC does not abide by these commitments and continues to be the main source of proliferation technology for Pakistan as well.

One would hope that such behavior would begin to make an impression on even the most besotted believers in the possibility of mutually beneficial U.S. cooperation with the PRC. Those Americans who signed the letter to the Washington Post last year urging President Trump not to “Make China an Enemy” surely should re-examine their thinking in light of continuing Chinese hostility toward the U.S. and other democracies unwilling to subjugate their own interests to those of the CCP.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/01/2020
By: Chen Yun-yu, Chang Chieh-chung and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, April 1 (CNA) The 10 million surgical face masks Taiwan pledged to donate to countries seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic will be given to the United States, 11 European countries and 15 diplomatic allies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced Wednesday.

Two million will be sent to the U.S.; 1 million to 15 allies, while the remaining 7 million masks will be donated to Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, according to a MOFA press release.

The ministry said it is also considering making similar face mask donations to other countries, namely the 18 countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Australia, covered by the nation's New Southbound Policy, in the near future.

According to MOFA, Taiwan is also in talks with the U.S. to donate 100,000 surgical face masks per week in exchange for raw materials that can be made into 300,000 medical protective suits as part of a bilateral agreement to fight the pandemic.    [FULL  STORY]