Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 04 July, 2019
By: Paula Chao

In about six months, the people of Taiwan head to the polls to vote for president. But who will run against President Tsai Ing-wen, who has already fought off a challenger from within her own Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to win the nomination? All eyes are on the Kuomintang (KMT) primaries which will be decided by polls next week, and which of the five candidates for the nomination will rise to the top. 

Will it be pro-China populist Han Kuo-yu, who is stirring up huge rallies, but facing calls for his resignation barely six months into his term as mayor of Kahosiung? Will it be the richest man in Taiwan, Foxconn founder Terry Gou, whose company makes your iPhone? Or will it be the establishment pick: Eric Chu, who is a popular former mayor of New Taipei City, but who lost the 2016 election to Tsai?

In this week’s Taiwan Insider, Natalie Tso and Andrew Ryan offer a closer look at the top KMT candidates and explain how both Taiwan’s largest political parties have changed their primary process. We also hear from political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith about the China policies of the top KMT contenders.    [FULL  STORY]

How can Taiwan step up its game in promoting local pop music overseas?

The News Lens
Date: 2019/07/04
By: Maggie Yang

London’s cultural diversity provides rich soil for different genres of music to grow. Living here as a student provides me with the opportunity to examine Taiwan’s pop music from a new point of view.

Quite often we hear how successful Taiwanese artists are with their world tours, but 80 to 90 percent of those concerts are hosted in Asia, and mostly in the Sinophone world. The question then arises, what strategies can artists who want to enter new music markets employ, especially outside of Asia?

Having attended the concerts of HUSH and Jay Chou, two Taiwanese singers, I was able to observe these two shows in terms of their scale, organization and audience.

HUSH’s gig was held in a small live house Redon with the maximum capacity of 300 people, while Jay Chou’s world tour was held in the O2, with 20,000 attendees for two seductive nights. HUSH’s performance was organized by his record company, which made contact with the venue and confirmed the show directly. Jay Chou’s show, however, was organized by an entertainment company with hundreds of professional staff. The only similarity shared by these two gigs was the audience formation: almost everyone in the audience was from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and the few Western audience were accompanied by Chinese friends.    [FULL  STORY]

Indigenous 8th Army sergeant bravely helps restrain knife attacker on train in SW Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/04
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An 8th Army Command sergeant and member of the Paiwan tribe has been praised by netizens for bravely stepping in to help subdue and restrain a crazed passenger who inflicted a lethal knife wound on a police officer on Wednesday evening (July 3).

On Wednesday evening, a 54-year-old man surnamed Cheng (鄭) boarded the TRA Tze-Chiang Limited Express (自強號) in Tainan and sat in carriage No. 3, reported Liberty Times. When the conductor began inspecting tickets, he found that Cheng had not purchased a ticket.

Cheng promised that he would buy a ticket when it stopped at Chiayi Station. Unexpectedly, when the train arrived at Chiayi Station, the man moved to carriage No. 4.

When the conductor questioned Cheng, an argument ensued and the conductor called the police. When a 26-year-old police officer surnamed Lee (李) Lee and another officer surnamed Lu (呂) boarded the train at 8:42 p.m., Cheng suddenly burst out into a violent rage, pulled out a fruit knife, and stabbed Lee with it, according to the report.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/04
By Liu Chien-pang, Wang Shu-feng, Wu Hsin-yun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, July 4 (CNA) The National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday it will improve police training so that they could carry out their duties with greater safety, after a railway police officer was stabbed to death by a passenger on a train in Chiayi the previous day.

Lee Cheng-han (李承翰), a 24-year-old officer from the Chiayi County Police Bureau, was stabbed by a knife-wielding passenger on a northbound train at Chiayi Station at 8:42 p.m. Wednesday.

The deceased police officer Lee Cheng-han / image taken from Lee’s Facebook

Lee was called in and was trying to subdue the passenger, who had pulled a knife when the conductor told him he needed to buy a ticket or get off the train.

The police officer was armed with a handgun and a baton but did not use his firearm against the attacker, probably in consideration of the safety of the other passengers in the cramped train car, the NPA said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 03 July, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

Police monitor the roads for drunk drivers.[/caption] Taiwan has launched a crackdown on drunk driving, and work by police to catch drunk drivers in the act is already proving successful. It isn’t just drivers getting caught either- included in a raft of new measures are fines targeted at drunk drivers’ passengers.

Over 300 people were hit with fines Tuesday as stiffer punishments for drunk driving took effect.

Under the new rules, drunk motorists can be fined up to NT$120,000 (US$3,900). Riding a scooter of motorcycle under the influence may now lead to fines of up to NT$90,000 (US$2,900).

Meanwhile, the penalty for refusing to take a Breathalyzer test or refusing to stop at a testing checkpoint has been doubled to NT$180,000 (US$5,800)    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/03
By: Pin Min Ming, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

Commentator Yang Sen-hong wrote that failing to unlock the secret files from the Martial Law era would be a serious collective crime on the part of the government, calling on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration not to let itself be hamstrung by conservative forces.

Between July 2018 and April of this year, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) decided to extend the period of confidentiality for 1,941 files by 30 years, meaning that some of them could only be opened up in 2048 at the latest. In addition, the National Security Bureau (NSB) is planning to declare 142 political files, including those covering the murders of Lin Yi-hsiung’s family and of Professor Chen Wen-chen, confidential forever, never to be opened. In total, there are 19,725 cases from 1945 to 1992. Originally, the MJIB was to have released 30,515 files this year. However, at present we already know 242 files will be kept confidential until 2043 and 1,699 until 2048, which means that some documents will not see the light of day for more than 100 years after the event. In the United States, even the files concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy will be unsealed 70 years after the facts.

Yang wondered whether there was a secret organization more powerful than the president trying to cover up Taiwan’s past. The actions of the MJIB and of the NSB are clearly unconstitutional and illegal, and amount to a kind of collective criminal action, Yang said. He expressed indignation at the fact that this had happened under the administration of a DPP president who had once promised to promote judicial reform. The files should have been unsealed a long time ago and handed to the Transitional Justice Commission, which itself did not protest against the recent MJIB and NSB decisions, he noted.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/03
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, July 3 (CNA) EVA Airways will be able to operate about several more flights than scheduled starting Wednesday as 400 flight attendants who went on a strike have changed their mind and returned to work, the company said Wednesday.

EVA Air previously announced that 73 out of 179 flights were canceled on Wednesday, affecting 11,500 passengers, but after adjusting its schedule, about 70 percent of its flights will operate as normal.

The increased capacity is the result of more striking flight attendants abandoning the labor action and going back to work, EVA Air said.

Beyond the 400 people who have already broken the picket line, another 200 flight attendants are waiting to get back three essential work documents — their passport, Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents, and EVA Air employee identification cards –they handed over to the union when the strike began, EVA Air said.    [FULL  STORY]

0BROADER SCOPE: The passed version of the amendments apply to retired officers ranked major general and above, and expand the restricted area beyond China

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 04, 2019
By: Huang Hsin-po and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA

The Legislative Yuan at an extraordinary session yesterday passed a third reading of draft

amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) that could see the monthly pensions of retired officials or military officers revoked for engaging in behavior that “impairs national dignity” at celebrations or events hosted by the Chinese Community Party, the Chinese government, or China-based military or political groups.

Such behavior includes saluting the Chinese national flag or emblem, and singing the Chinese national anthem, according to the draft amendments.

The amendments were proposed after 32 retired generals in November 2016 attended an event in China marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山), at which they listened to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) give a speech and stood during a rendition of the Chinese national anthem.

In a version of the amendments that passed a preliminary review, only the retired heads and deputies of government agencies associated with national defense, foreign affairs, China affairs and national security; retired heads of intelligence agencies; and retired officers ranked lieutenant general or above would be subject to the restrictions.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 02 July, 2019
By: Natalie Tso

A tornado hits Pingtung on Monday[/caption] A storm and tornado hit Pingtung on Monday shocking residents and bringing much damage to local towns.

A major storm and a tornado hit Pingtung on Monday afternoon. The winds swept through two towns, striking down motorcycles, and smashing 5 cars in its path. Over 7000 households were left without electricity. Some corrugated steel homes were blown across the street. It also hurled a 3.5 ton truck into a house.

The tornado hit Linbian and Nanzhou Townships and swept back and forth across Wanhua Village twice, shocking local residents. One man screamed in terror as he watched the tornado tear through his neighborhood. The tornado formed around 3pm and within 4 minutes damaged hundreds of homes. Two persons suffered minor injuries from flying debris.

The tornado was caused by heat and low pressures in the waters off southern Taiwan forming strong convection currents. It brought much damage to local towns and villages but fortunately there were no major injuries or loss of life.

On Tuesday, the army sent 80 troops to help local residents clean up and restore their neighborhoods.   [SOURCE]

Hong Kong protestors stormed the legislature, drawing similarities to Sunflower Movement.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/07/02
By: Co-authored by Brian Hioe and Daphne K. Lee

Demonstrations in Hong Kong against the extradition bill saw an unexpected turn with the brief occupation of the Legislative Council (LegCo) for several hours, before protesters eventually withdrew from the building.

Attempts to break into LegCo had been going on since early afternoon, simultaneous with the July 1 pro-democracy march, which marked the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong. Some marchers left the rally and headed to LegCo to provide assistance.

Hundreds of protestors successfully stormed into the legislature around 9 pm. It was the first time in Hong Kong’s history that LegCo was occupied by demonstrators in any substantive way.

The occupiers spray-painted slogans like “Sunflower Movement Hong Kong” on the walls of the LegCo chamber and called for the release of political prisoners and the investigation of police violence.    [FULL  STORY]