Germany opposes politicization of global health issues

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/09
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Following the United States and Japan, Australia and Germany were the latest countries to voice support for Taiwan’s attempts at attending the World Health Assembly (WHA), reports said Thursday (May 9).

The organizer of the May 20-28 event in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO), failed for the third year running to invite Taiwan, due to pressure from China. Despite the latest example of Chinese bullying, a government-led delegation will still travel to Switzerland to meet with WHA participants.

Acting separately, Australia and Germany on Thursday said through their representative offices in Taiwan that the country should have the right to attend the global health meet.

“Germany strongly opposes the politicization of global health issues,” the German office said, according to the Central News Agency. A statement described Taiwan as a major airline hub, making it necessary for the country to play an important role in preventing the spread of contagious diseases.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/09
By Stacy Hsu, CNA staff reporter

Imagine this: You have been locked and mentally tormented in a carefully guarded room

for months and you worry your partner or friends may be suffering the same fate.

On top of this, you know the only thing that stands between you and physical torture is the authorities’ need for you to “look good” in a forced TV confession later on. The level of despair is overwhelming.

The idea of reliving that ordeal was what drove Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee (林榮基) to flee to Taiwan in late April.

Lam, along with four other individuals related to Causeway Bay Books, “vanished” for months in late 2015 for selling titles critical of the Chinese government and mailing them to people in China.    [FULL  STORY]

‘UNITED FRONT’: Schools with ties to Communist Youth League academies or that have sent interns to Chinese state-run media must correct the situation or face a fine

Taipei Times
Date: May 10, 2019
By: Rachel Lin, Lee Hsin-fang and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

The Ministry of Education yesterday proclaimed academic and cultural exchanges by

students and teachers with Chinese Communist Party-affiliated institutions a breach of 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) punishable by a NT$500,000 (US$16,152) fine.

Officials discovered that some schools have become sister schools with Communist Youth League academies, while others have sent interns to China’s state-run China Central Television and the People’s Daily, Department of International and Cross-strait Education Director-General Lai Hsin-jen (賴信任) said.

The ministry has asked the schools to correct the situation and vowed to impose a fine if the infractions persist, Lai said.

The ministry also plans to meet with the Mainland Affairs Council and schools to discuss China’s “united front” tactics targeting teachers in the areas of culture and education, Deputy Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 08 May, 2019
By: Paula Chao

A firefighter in the southwestern city of Chiayi has prepared a very special gift for Mother’s Day: a Mother’s Day cake with cash inside. Behind this unusual gift is a problem many Taiwanese people face. What can they buy that won’t seem boring or end up causing trouble?

Mother’s Day is just around the corner in Taiwan. Have you seen a Mother’s Day cake like this before? It’s certainly unconventional: a card is attached to the cake with a string of banknotes.

The giver of this special gift is a firefighter named Lin Ruei-che. Lin says the cash attached to this cake for his mother is real. In all, the cash gift amounts to US$330.    [FULL  STORY]

There’s plenty going on outside the DPP and KMT presidential primaries. 

The News Lens
Date: 2019/05/08
By: Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文)

In the first two articles of this series, we looked at the internal dynamics of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomintang (KMT) presidential primary races, both of which find themselves in unprecedented, unpredictable and potentially dangerous territory.

In both parties, unity is at stake as competing interests and factions go head-to-head. But there is a whole lot more going on outside of the parties that could determine the final shape of the race going into the presidential election season.

Third party or independent candidates could have significant impact, with the possible entry of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) being a potential game changer. Foreign powers, most notably China and the United States, are already starting to get involved in the race – with considerable concerns over direct meddling on the part of China. For the full details, read the previous two parts of the series, but to recap:

The DPP is currently running their primary as a public opinion poll after May 22, choosing the more popular of the two candidates – incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) or ex-Premier William Lai (賴清德) – among the public at large. The president is, according to most polling. more popular among party members, but is facing an unprecedented primary challenge from Lai. Currently, broad public opinion polls are leaning in Lai’s favor. This could lead to a lame duck president in office while the party’s candidate runs to replace her in office, an awkward arrangement at best. Should Tsai prevail, she will be faced with the challenge of healing the rifts that have opened up in the party – in part over her and the top party leadership’s current efforts to change the rules on the primary through delays to try and head off Lai’s challenge, which Lai’s supporters consider unfair and underhanded.    [FULL  STORY]

Canadian IT engineer in Taiwan discovers Huawei Mediapad M5 is snooping on him from China

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/08
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After news broke that a Huawei P30 Pro was apparently querying servers in China, a Canadian IT engineer who lives in Taiwan says he has discovered that his Huawei Mediapad M5 is spying on him through several apps.

The engineer, who is skilled in computers, cellphones, and data networks, told Taiwan News that whenever he buys a new cellphone, he always installs a noroot firewall application to block unwanted snooping. After installing the firewall program on his newly purchased Huawei Mediapad M5, he found that Huawei was using his device to snoop on his activities and will not allow him to disable the offending apps.

The man said that he purchased the Huawei Mediapad M5 tablet/smartphone about six months ago, and it is the 8.1″ sized model. He said that he had mainly used the firewall program to identify apps that were running in the background so he could disable them to save battery power.

He soon discovered several applications running in the background on his Huawei device that are sending data to China, but he never authorized them to do so. Despite the fact that he opted to disable them, the apps are still running in the background and he says he no longer has access to them.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/08
By: Chiang Chinye, Yeh Su-ping and Evelyn Kao

Washington-Taipei, May 8 (CNA) The United States House of Representatives on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill to support security in Taiwan and approved a non-binding resolution reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Taiwan.

The House passed the 2019 Taiwan Assurance Act, which calls for regular transfers of defense articles to Taiwan and opening dialogue toward a Taiwan-U.S. free trade agreement.

The bill recognizes that Taiwan is an important part of U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and urges the government to assist Taiwan in terms of regular arms sales, and developing and integrating asymmetric warfare capabilities, including undersea warfare and air defense capabilities.

The bill also wants the U.S. Trade Representative to resume talks under the U.S.-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the goal of reaching a bilateral free trade agreement.    [FULL  STORY]

LOOPHOLE CLOSED: Legislators sponsored changes to the Criminal Code to extend penalties for espionage to Chinese nationals and residents of Hong Kong and Macau

Taipei Times
Date: May 08, 2019
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Lawmakers yesterday stiffened penalties for people who leak state secrets

and approved amendments to ensure that Chinese spies face the same punishment as Republic of China (ROC) citizens who commit “offenses against the external security of the state.”

The Constitution defines China as a territory of the ROC and the Criminal Code stipulates penalties for ROC citizens who collude with “foreign nations or personnel they dispatched,” so the same penalties could not be applied to Chinese spies, said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), who sponsored the amendments to the code.

As a result, spies from China are only handed light sentences under special laws, Wang added.

In the largest case involving a Chinese spy, People’s Liberation Army intelligence officer Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江) came to Taiwan and persuaded more than 10 military officers to collude with him, but was only sentenced to four years in prison, Wang said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 07 May, 2019
By: Shirley Lin

President Tsai Ing-wen says the world is not pleased with the way China is blocking Taiwan from attending this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA).

The WHA is the decision-making body of the World Health Organization. This year’s WHA session is set to take place in Geneva from May 20-28. Though Taiwan has attended as an observer in the past, it has been barred for several years because of pressure from China.

Tsai said Tuesday Taiwanese people have the right to be a part of the WHO and the WHA.

Tsai said,“The purpose of the WHO and WHA is to serve the world on health issues, not to maintain [China’s] political position. We are resolute that we have a right to take part in the WHO and the WHA. The more China suppresses [Taiwan], the more displeased the Taiwanese people will be. The international community is becoming more and more dissatisfied with China’s attitude.”    [FULL  STORY]

Latest report from the Pentagon seen as underscoring Taiwan’s bid to buy new F-16 jets

Asia Times
Date: MAY 7, 2019
By: Asia Times Staff

The People’s Liberation Army is unlikely to defeat the Taiwanese military by merely shelling the country’s outlying islands close to the mainland, should hostilities break out between the two militaries. Yet the improved range of the PLA’s missiles, its new stealth fighters and bombers do pose a heightened threat to the self-governed island, which Beijing has vowed to take control of again.

Lawmakers in Taiwan are urging decision-makers to boost the island’s asymmetric defense capabilities, including its arsenal of surface-to-air and shore-based anti-ship missiles.

The call comes after the US military found that the west and northwest of Taiwan, including Taipei, the capital, and Taoyuan, the island’s aviation gateway, would be well within range of the PLA’s new air-defense missiles, according to the Pentagon’s annual report submitted to Congress.

The warning has caused Taiwan to move the bulk of its F-16V fighter fleet further east – to the Chihhang Air Base in Taitung County, which faces the Pacific, so these jets will be out of the reach of the PLA’s surface-to-air missiles during take-off.    [FULL  STORY]