Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/06/01
By: Huang Tzu-chiang, Elaine Hou and Chung Yu-chen

Singapore, June 1 (CNA) The United States said Saturday it would continue to meet its

defense obligations to Taiwan at the 18th Shangri-La Dialogue-the leading security forum in the Asia-Pacific region.

Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan made the remark during the three-day dialogue, which gathers defense ministers and high-ranking military officials from around the world.

Commenting on the U.S.’ cooperation with countries in the Asia region, Shanahan said Washington would continue to meet its obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to make defense articles and defense services available to Taiwan for its self-defense.

“This support empowers the people of Taiwan to determine their own future,” he said.
[FULL  STORY

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 02, 2019
By: Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with CNA

The US Air Force Academy on Friday called Taiwan a foreign nation when introducing

Taiwanese cadets at its graduation ceremony, which was attended by US President Donald Trump.

“We are pleased to have in the class graduates from 10 foreign nations,” a US Air Force officer presiding over the ceremony said, before naming Taiwan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Romania, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Tunisia.

As each nation was called, a cadet from that nation stood and displayed their flag, which the audience acknowledged with cheers.

A video released by the academy showed a Taiwanese graduate standing and waving the Republic of China (ROC) flag.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 31 May, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

Starting Friday, travelers entering Taiwan from South Korea will have their hand luggage inspected on arrival. (Photo Courtesy Kaohsiung Customs)
The government emergency center tasked with keeping African swine fever out of Taiwan has added South Korea to the list of areas it considers to be at high risk of an outbreak.

The move follows the announcement of a case of the disease in neighboring North Korea.
[FULL  STORY]

General Koxinga’s claims to Taiwan were groundbreaking … and now everyone uses his legacy for their own ends.

OZY 
Date May 31 2019
By: Nick Taber 

Chinese general Koxinga landed in Taiwan in 1661, when it was known as Formosa and controlled by the Dutch East India Company. Historian Xing Hang describes him standing outside a Dutch fortress, shouting: “Taiwan belongs to the government of China!” Fast-forward 358 years to this January, when Chinese President Xi Jinping stood in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and proclaimed, “It’s a legal fact that both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait belong to one China and cannot be changed by anyone or any force.”

Xi has repeatedly vowed to reunite Taiwan with China and is rapidly building a military capable of delivering on that promise. The modern conflict over Taiwan is the legacy of a civil war between the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC), which today rules mainland China, and the nationalist Republic of China (ROC), which rules Taiwan and a few islands off the southeast coast of China. By some reckonings, that conflict began in 1949 when the ROC government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan with the intention of one day expelling the communists and unifying China.

But they were far from the first. In his forthcoming book, The Making of the Chinese Navy, Bruce Elleman argues that “Taiwan has repeatedly been used as a sanctuary for the losing side in Chinese civil wars.” The story of the first such instance centers on Koxinga, a legendary ruler described in Chinese textbooks as a national hero for expelling Western powers from Taiwan.

WHEN KOXINGA CLAIMED TAIWAN HAD BEEN CHINESE TERRITORY SINCE “ANCIENT TIMES,” HE WAS THE FIRST OF MANY WHO WOULD MAKE THAT CLAIM.

In the mid-17th century, the Manchu invaded China from the north, defeating the Ming dynasty to establish the Qing dynasty. Loyalists of the old regime were forced to consider their dwindling options. Koxinga, or Zheng Chenggong, was a Ming loyalist with deep hatred for the Manchu invaders from the north, who had executed his father and driven his mother to suicide. Koxinga assembled a massive force to invade Taiwan, then only inhabited by the Dutch East India Company and aboriginal groups, with the intention of eventually restoring ethnic-Chinese control of China.    [FULL  STORY]

Indian colonel analyses Chinese PLAN invasion of Taiwan based on satellite images of war games

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/31
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A retired Indian Army colonel has presented his analysis of what he believes are Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN’s) strategy for invading Taiwan based satellite photos of its war games on the Indian news site ThePrint.

In the article, Colonel Vinayak Bhat says that the PLAN appears to plan on using large Type 072 landing ships and Type 071 landing platform docks (LPD) to ferry its troops to landing zones on Taiwan’s beaches. Bhat says that observations of the maneuvers over the years have shown two distinct patterns of landing ship deployments.

First, Bhat said the ships are deployed with their bows and sides turned away from the shore to ensure faster debarkation of landing craft and to evade shore-based fire from Taiwanese forces. Second, he said the ships are deployed in a circular pattern, with the LPD “on one of the flanks with respect to the shore.”

He said that given the ships only have short-range air defenses and close-in weapons systems, this circular formation affords more safety from shore batteries and aerial strikes.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/31 
By: Wang Yang-yu and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 31 (CNA) Taiwan’s Legislature passed an amendment to the Criminal Code Friday setting a maximum punishment of life imprisonment for repeat drunk drivers who cause death while driving under the influence (DUI) within five years of conviction.

The amendment was proposed to add the penalties for repeat drunk drivers to Article 185-3 of the Criminal Code.

Under the new rules, convicted drunk drivers, or those who receive a deferred prosecution verdict for DUI will be subject to imprisonment of up to life from a minimum of five years if found guilty again for causing death in DUI cases within five years of conviction.

The new regulations also set a penalty of imprisonment from three to 10 years for repeat drunk drivers in cases in which people are severely injured.    [FULL  STORY]

PROTECTION: The amendment stipulates that proposals to alter or annul Taiwan’s free, democratic and constitutional system should never be part of cross-strait negotiations

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 01, 2019
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Lawmakers yesterday amended 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) to include legislative oversight and referendums before the government can sign a political agreement with China.

The amended act includes a new Article 5-3, which stipulates that the Executive Yuan must submit a signing plan and a political impact assessment report to the Legislative Yuan at least 90 days before it is scheduled to begin negotiations with the Chinese government.

The plan must obtain the approval of three-quarters of lawmakers in a legislative meeting attended by at least three-quarters of all lawmakers, the amendment says.

A political agreement, as defined by the amendment, is one that would have a major constitutional or political effect.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 30 May, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

DPP presidential hopeful William Lai has taken to Facebook condemning changes to his party’s primary contest rules.

The DPP uses telephone polling to determine the outcome of its primaries. Pollsters ask voters which presidential candidate they would vote for in different election scenarios to gauge which of the party’s hopefuls stands the best chance of winning.

Though rules for this year’s contest were decided in March, disagreements continued over whether mobile phones should be included in the polling.

Lai’s camp says that the party should stick to the rules it settled in March and only poll landline numbers. However, at a meeting Wednesday, the party’s central committee decided on a compromise. Half of the people polled will now be landline users, while the other half will be users of mobile phones. The committee agreed to the compromise by consensus, without holding a formal vote.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan English News
Date: May 30, 2019 
By: Phillip Charlier  

Two people were injured after a man wanted for armed robbery slashed them with a kitchen knife, while robbing one man of his belongings and his scooter in Zhongli District, Taoyuan City yesterday, May 29.

At around 7:30pm witnesses reported seeing a man armed with a kitchen chopper shouting at a man on a scooter before slashing him and taking his backpack and scooter. During the robbery another passerby was also cut.

The suspect rode to Pingzhen District, where he threatened another man and took his scooter in Wenhua Street at around 7:50pm.

At around 8:30pm, the suspect appeared on Daye Road, Taoyuan City, and threatened two women with the knife, forcing them to hand over their scooter.    [FULL  STORY]

The president thanked the religious leader for his letter at the International Conference on Religious Freedom in Hsinchu

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/05/30
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The 14th Dalai Lama sent a letter dated May 24 to the International Conference on Religious Freedom, held in Hsinchu on Thursday (May 30), which said religious freedom is a human right.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who also attended the conference, said Taiwan is the freest country in the Indo-Pacific region in terms of religion. She thanked the Dalai Lama for sending the message and a blessing the conference would contribute to a happier, more peaceful world

Tsai also thanked other religious leaders and representatives from around the world for attending the conference, saying, “Let’s work hand in hand and through dialogue, to strive for freedom of religion for all mankind.”    [FULL  STORY]