• The American president has stepped up the frequency of weapons deals with the island, and officials now talk of making the process routine business
• In doing so, Washington has shown its willingness to confront Beijing even when relations are at their lowest ebb

South China Morning Post
Date: 25 Aug, 2019
By: Cary Huang  

The Trump administration’s green light for the sale of 66 fighter jets to Taiwan . will not make much operational military impact. But it delivers a strong message about the US commitment to defend the East Asian democracy. And, more notably, it underscores a significant change in Washington’s geopolitical considerations under its “Indo-Pacific” strategy, which aims to contain China

.The sale will be the largest and most significant shipment of weaponry to the self-ruled island in decades, since George H.W. Bush approved the sale of 150 fighter jets in 1992. In 2011, the Barack Obama government rejected Taiwan’s request to buy F-16C/D planes, but agreed to upgrade the island’s F-16A/B fighters, bought in 1992.The United States

 is obliged to help defend Taiwan by providing “arms of defensive character” under the Taiwan Relations Act, which was passed in 1979 when Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/25
By:  Central News Agency

Taipei, Aug. 24 (CNA) The Taoyuan District Court approved a motion Sunday to take into custody a drunk truck driver who was responsible for the death of three people in a traffic accident the previous day.

The ruling came after local prosecutors requested the detention of the 26-year-old man, identified only by his surname Chu (朱), out of concern the suspect might flee.

Chu is suspected of driving under the influence and negligent manslaughter, prosecutors said.

The truck Chu drove rammed into a group of people and four parked cars on Dazhu Road near a public park in Luzhu District on Saturday morning, according to the Taoyuan Police Department's Luzhu Precinct.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/08/25
By Yu Hsiao-han, Huang Li-yun, Lee Hsien-feng, Chang Jung-hsiang 
and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) has lifted its land and sea warnings for Tropical Storm Bailu, which swept through southern Taiwan on Saturday, but warned that parts of Taiwan could still see heavy rainfall.

The CWB lifted its land warning for Bailu at 8:30 a.m. Sunday and its sea warning at 11:30 a.m., saying that it was no longer a threat to Taiwan as it was moving in a west-northwest direction and was expected to weaken to a tropical depression.

Due to the peripheral effects of the storm, however, heavy rain will continue to affect Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south, Yilan and Hualien in the east, and the offshore counties of Penghu and Kinmen, the bureau said.

It also issued an extremely heavy rain warning for Taitung and Pingtung.    [FULL  STORY]

National Review
Date: August 24, 2019
By Matthew Continetti

If you really cared about the future of democracy in the Indo-Pacific, then you would support the policies of the Trump administration by reinforcing Taiwan.

In October 1950 the People’s Liberation Army entered Tibet. The Communists made short work of the Tibetan military. The following year, representatives of the Dalai Lama signed a treaty with the People’s Republic of China (then all of two years old). The “Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet,” or the “Seventeen-Point Agreement” for short, promised that Beijing would uphold Tibetan autonomy, refrain from interfering with Tibetan politics or with the affairs of the Dalai Lama, and respect the religious freedom of Tibetan Buddhists.

These were words on a page. Before long, the Chinese Communists began to exert pressure over the Tibetan people. Occupation forces spread throughout the region. The authorities collectivized agriculture and broke down institutions of civil society. Farmers and militia rebelled. The resistance was quashed, and the Dalai Lama began an exile that continues today. Tibet, like Xinjiang province to its north, is a cantonment of the People’s Republic.

The Seventeen-Point Agreement is the model for Chinese territorial acquisitions. Verbal pledges of freedom are meaningless. What matters is the correlation of forces and facts on the ground. Communists have no trouble speaking of autonomy and local control. Until the moment Beijing dominates the councils of government and independent power centers have been crushed.

In June 1984, Deng Xiaoping pledged that reunification of Hong Kong and Macau with the mainland would be conducted according to the principle of “one country, two systems.” Deng also mentioned the island redoubt of the nationalists defeated in China’s civil war. “The mainland with its one billion people will maintain the socialist system,” he said, “while Hong Kong and Taiwan continue under the capitalist system.” Taiwan was no imperial possession. It has been independent of the People’s Republic for its entire life. It’s held free and direct presidential elections since 1996. For Beijing, this island of 23 million is simply another lost province that one day will be repossessed.
[FULL  STORY]

The National Interest
Date: August 24, 2019  
By: Sebastien Roblin

After dithering for weeks, on August 15 the Trump administration informed Congress it would authorize the sale of sixty-six newly-manufactured F-16V fighters to Taiwan for $8 billion—a move which is certain to infuriate Beijing, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

Though the deal is not technically finalized, Taipei will jump at the rare opportunity to purchase new jet fighters to reinforce its aging fleet of combat aircraft. Theoretically, its air force may be called upon to face off against nearly four or five times their number of Chinese combat aircraft, should Beijing resort to using military force against the island.

But for Taiwan’s out-numbered fighters to have any impact at all, they must first make it off the ground—and that could become impossible due the 1,300 ballistic missiles and hundreds of air-, sea-, and ground-launched cruise missiles the People’s Liberation Army can array against the island.

A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation notes: “Taiwan is unfortunately situated very near a country that…has invested extensively in a wider range of capabilities that will make it very difficult for Taiwan to fly fighter aircraft into combat.”    [FULL  STORY]

Kinmen shuts down schools and offices Sunday morning

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/24
By: Duncan DeAeth, Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Tropical Storm Bailu only spent three hours crossing the southern tip of Taiwan Saturday (August 24) afternoon, but torrential rain and strong winds were expected to last for the rest of the day, especially in the South, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The storm made landfall in Manzhou, Pingtung County, on the southwest coast around 1 p.m., and spent longer than expected on land until it moved into the Taiwan Strait from Kaohsiung City after 4 p.m., the Central News Agency reported.

The storm left two injured in its wake, both in Taitung County, though precise details about the circumstances were not immediately available.

The worst-hit areas were the east coast, mainly the counties of Taitung and Hualien, reports said. The heaviest rainfall was the 500 milliliters recorded on Liushidan Mountain near Fuli in Hualien County, a location usually drawing many sightseers for its orange daylily blossoms. A total of 14 people were stuck on the mountain for a while after the road down was made impassable by mudslides.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/08/24
By: Chiu Chun-chin and Ko Lin

Taipei, Aug. 24 (CNA) Three people, including two volunteer street cleaners, were pronounced dead at local hospitals in Taoyuan on Saturday morning after a drunken truck driver plowed into them and four other parked cars.

The deadly accident took place on Dazhu Road near a public park in Luzhu District, the city's Fire Department said.

Eight ambulances were immediately deployed to the scene after it received an emergency call at 6:41 a.m.

According to the Luzhu Precinct of the Taoyuan Police Department, the driver was a 26-year old man, who later took a breathalyzer test and had a blood alcohol content of 0.64 mg/l, more than four times the legal limit of 0.15 mg/l.    [FULL  STORY]

TRANSPORT DISRUPTION:Torrential rainfall caused mudslides that blocked roads in mountainous areas of Hualien County and damaged several highways in Kaohsiung

Taiei Times
Date: Aug 25, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Severe Tropical Storm Bailu yesterday brought heavy rain to eastern and southern Taiwan, with

Hualien County recording more than 500mm, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Hualien’s Fuli Township (富里) saw the heaviest inundation in the nation with 534mm accumulated from midnight on Friday to 8pm yesterday, meeting the criteria for extreme torrential rain, the most severe of Taiwan’s four-tier rainfall intensity scale.

Two other monitoring stations in Fuli Township reported accumulated rainfall of 493.5mm and 484.5mm as of 8pm yesterday.

Extreme torrential rainfall means accumulated rainfall of 500mm or more in 24 hours, the bureau said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 23 August, 2019
By: Shirley Lin

Time Magazine has chosen Kaohsiung’s new arts center, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, for this year’s edition of an annual list called 100 World’s Greatest Places. The center is the first Taiwanese structure to make the list since its inception.

Time describes the center as a former Japanese military base that is now home to the world’s largest performing-­arts center that is under a single roof. The center opened in October 2018 and spans 9.9 hectares. The compound features a roof inspired by banyan trees, which are commonly found in Taiwan. The roof dips to the ground, forming the base of an outdoor theater that can seat 20,000. Inside are four other performance venues which have already played host to world-class acts such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra.    [FULL  STORY]

Any guesses? 

The News Lens
Date: August 23, 2019
By: Bahauddin Foizee

A tiny yet wealthy city-state, Singapore is a major financial hub of Asia. While this moneyed image has become the mainstream depiction of Singapore, many are unaware of the fact that Singaporean armed forces are active contributors to the security of the region, and in particular its navy has been actively patrolling the regional waters alongside other regional navies against any potential threats, including piracy.

Singapore’s navy, officially known as the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), has been shaped over the years into a maritime force that is highly sophisticated and well-trained. The RSN was even ranked among the top five Asian navies by The National Interest article.

Ambitious Procurement Plans

Singapore intends to build a navy that could protect its territories and economic interest from the potential hostility by any immediate larger neighbors (like Malaysia), and more importantly a navy that could become lethal if combined with other regional and extra-regional navies (like Australia, India, Indonesia and Japan) against a powerful navy (like Chinese navy).

Singapore, therefore, plans to acquire more advanced capabilities for its navy, including renewing its submarine fleet, acquiring new vessels with potential to serve as an aircraft carrier and adding unmanned platforms to its defense machinery.    [FULL  STORY]