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30 years after Tiananmen massacre, Taiwan shows another way for China

CNN
Date: April 15, 2019
By: Margaret Lewis and Jeffrey Wasserstrom

(CNN)Thirty years ago Monday, the most important Chinese mass movement of the last half-century began when Beijing students gathered to mourn Hu Yaobang, a reformist official.

Soon, massive crowds calling for change were converging on the central plazas of dozens of Chinese cities. On May 20, the government imposed martial law in Beijing, whose Tiananmen Square was the site of the largest rallies. Two weeks later, on June 4, the movement ended after soldiers fired on unarmed civilians on the streets of the capital.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has ruled the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since its founding in 1949, has never allowed an official investigation into the killing. The massacre’s death toll remains unknown, but at least several hundred civilians and perhaps ten times that were slain.

Thanks in part to the iconic photo of the “Tank Man” standing up to the armed might of the CCP, June 4 is famous around the world, but discussion of what happened on 6/4 — known as liusi in Chinese — remains heavily censored in China and public mourning of the victims is forbidden.

This concerted effort to blot out memory of a 30-year-old event is not unprecedented, and there are parallels in the handling of an earlier massacre across the Taiwan strait. This one, known as 2/28, took place in 1947 in Taipei, the largest city and capital of Taiwan, which is officially known as the Republic of China (ROC).

For decades, the Nationalist Party (KMT) whose soldiers carried out the 2/28 massacre prevented official investigation of the bloodshed. The size of the death toll thus remains uncertain, though it is believed to be between several thousand and 25,000.
In 1977, 30 years after 2/28, the KMT continued to ban all discussion of the event.

In 1977, Taiwan was still, like today’s PRC, under one-party authoritarian rule.
A key reason the memories of the 1947 massacre threatened the KMT in 1977 and memories of the 1989 massacre threaten the CCP now is that, in each killing, soldiers touted as benevolent defenders of the people behaved like brutal invaders.
Today however, Taiwan is a democracy, and 2/28 is marked nationwide as Peace Memorial Day. What can we learn from the similarities between the massacres — and that the KMT eventually apologized for 2/28?    [FULL  STORY]

TRAVEL REVIEW: Seeking out Mother Nature in Taiwan

The Bolton News
April 14, 2019

SITTING on the veranda of a semi-detached log cabin managed by members of the

Undated handout photo of the Qingshui Cliffs in Taroko National Park in Taiwan.

indigenous Truku tribe, I close my eyes and draw breath. The air is thick with a sweet, nocturnal symphony of insects and chirruping cicadas, which envelops me like a swooning lover beneath a sky studded with twinkling white jewels.

Under the cover of almost perfect darkness nestled between the sleeping giants of Taroko National Park’s mountains, the secluded Taiwanese plateau thrums with the electricity of urgent, unstoppable, unseen life.

Mother Nature holds sway here and she can be ferocious. During humid summer months, monsoon and typhoon seasons follow in quick succession, deluging a small island state less than half the size of Scotland or Ireland, which experiences hundreds of tremors every year from shifts in the ocean’s tectonic plates off its eastern coast.

Roughly 70 per cent of the island is mountainous, concentrating a population of 23.58 million Chinese Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and indigenous peoples in Taipei to the north and Kaohsiung, Taichung and Tainan along the western coast. Venturing off these beaten tracks demands sturdy hiking boots, waterproof clothing and reasonable levels of fitness.    [FULL  STORY]

Washington urged not to refer to ‘one China’ policy

Taiwan News  
Date: 2019/04/14
By:  Central News Agency

A former U.S. official urged Washington Sunday not to refer to its “one China” policy in a

William Stanton, former director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office. (By Central News Agency)

diplomatic setting when it comes to cross-Taiwan Strait relations, as it is confusing and misleading.

“There are a lot of other measures that the U.S. could unilaterally adopt,” said William Stanton, former director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office, while giving a keynote speech in a seminar held by three pro-independence organizations — the Taiwan New Century Foundation, the Taiwan New Constitution Foundation and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party.

“So you shouldn’t say, ‘well, in accordance with our one China policy,'” he urged in the seminar titled “Taiwan’s Challenges and Opportunities amid Challenging Global Circumstances: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act.”

Stanton contended that Washington should focus more on the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and Six Assurances, rather than the Three Communiques jointly issued by the United States and China, to deal with the so-called Taiwan issue.    [FULL  STORY]

Long line at polling station as Taiwan-based Indonesians go to polls

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/14
By: Chi Jo-yao 

Taipei, April 14 (CNA) A long line of voters waited outside a polling station near Taipei Main Station as absentee voting kicked off Sunday, three days before Indonesia’s 2019 general election.

Indonesians in Taiwan could vote for their president, vice president and members of the People’s Consultative Assembly in the general election from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. at 34 polling stations set up across the island.

Outside the polling station in front of an Indonesian grocery store on Beiping West Road, close to Taipei Main Station, there was a 100-meter line of voters waiting early Sunday when the polling station opened, according to a local restaurant worker.

Mariana Gultom, a staff member of the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei (IETO) in charge of the polling station, said the number of voters showing up was higher than expected.    [FULL  STORY]

Formosat-7 to be sent to the US today

HIGH-TECH: The satellite is the biggest collaborative program between Taiwan and the US, Tsai Ing-wen said, adding Taiwan plays an important role in international space programs

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 15, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

The Formosat-7/COSMIC-2 satellite constellation was yesterday sent to Taoyuan

President Tsai Ing-wen, center, talks to a group of children after attending a ceremony at the National Space Organization headquarters yesterday in Hsinchu.Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times

International Airport to be forwarded via diplomatic pouch to the US today, while President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said it would be launched on June 22.

Tsai made the announcement at a ceremony held by the Ministry of Science and Technology at the National Space Organization (NSPO) at the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區).

The constellation is the biggest-ever collaborative program between Taiwan and the US, Tsai said.

Its launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket would be more good news following the revelation on Wednesday of the first image of a black hole by an international group of scientists, including Academia Sinica researchers, she said.    [FULL  STORY]

China Threatens to Turn Taiwan Into Another Lebanon

Beijing has a warning for Taiwan: toe the line or we’ll do to you what Israel has done to Lebanon—bomb you to pieces.

The National Interest
Date: April 13, 2019
By: Michael Peck

That warning came after U.S. national security adviser John Bolton complained that Chinese J-11 fighters crossed the middle line of the Taiwan Strait, which somewhat unofficially demarcates control of the waters between China and Taiwan. It marked the first time in almost twenty years that Chinese aircraft have done this, with Taiwanese fighters scrambling to intercept them.

China’s pro-government Global Times newspaper predictably denounced the U.S. denunciation, taking aim at several occasions over the last year—and most recently in March—when U.S. warships passed through the Taiwan Straits to dispute China’s assertion that it has sovereignty over the waterway (and Taiwan island, too).

“Washington is choosing the wrong place, time and opponent to flex its muscle in Taiwan Straits,” warned Global Times. If the U.S. military stations forces in Taiwan, China will attack, the article said. If the U.S. sells advanced fighters like the F-16V to Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army will respond.

What’s interesting are what those responses might be. “The PLA has many choices, including crossing the ‘middle line,’ flying over the Taiwan island and even turn Taiwan into a Lebanon-like situation,” the newspaper said. “These choices don’t necessarily lead to war. They are enough to force Taiwan authorities to readjust their radical policies.”
[FULL  STORY]

China’s Surreptitious Economic Influence On Taiwan’s Elections

Independent Newspapers – Nigeria
Date: April 13, 2019
By:  Agency Report

In Taiwan’s local elections held on November 24, the Kuomintang (KMT) trounced the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Common in post-election reporting was the idea that cross-strait relations, one of the traditional defining issues in Taiwanese partisan politics, was less of a factor in determining voters’ decisions than in previous years. According to some experts, DPP President Tsai Ing-wen’s inability to combat stagnant wages, reduce unemployment, and enact labor reform were the principal contributors to her party’s “stunning” loss. These commentators have made it a point to distinguish “China issues” from domestic, economic issues in determining the election outcome.

Missing from such arguments, however, is consideration of the underlying and ever-present influence of China on the Taiwanese economy. Although local grievances toward DPP economic policy were the resounding driving force behind the KMT’s victory, Chinese policy cannot escape implication with regard to Taiwan’s ailing economy. Since Tsai’s election in 2016, Beijing has responded to Taipei’s refusal to recognize the 1992 Consensus and the DPP’s pro-independence leanings by choking the island’s economy and exploiting its vulnerabilities and dependence on mainland markets. It is in this way that Beijing, on the local level, indirectly enabled the DPP’s defeat last year.
[FULL  STORY]

Chinese academic’s deportation from Taiwan ‘justified’: Premier

Visiting Taiwan to advocate forceful unification in the guise of sightseeing is a terrorist act: Su

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/04/13
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Su attends an event promoting Pingtung-grown onions (By Central News Agency)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The government of Taiwan will deport anyone who intends to push for military unification during his or her sojourn on the island, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said Saturday, a day following the deportation of Chinese academic Li Yi (李毅) who had attempted to deliver a speech while only having applied for a tourist visa.

Su reiterated the government’s stern stance over the issue in an event marketing Pingtung-grown onions on April 13, wrote Liberty Times, as a group of five pro-unification individuals was reportedly planning to visit the island to conduct public speeches at the end of the month.

Taiwan, despite being a free, democratic, and hospitable country, will never countenance conducts by individuals who seek to impose the ideology of China’s unification with Taiwan through military force, asserted Su, adding “visiting Taiwan to advocate forceful unification under the guise of sightseeing amounts to a terrorist act.”

Stressing that it was justifiable for the National Immigration Agency to expel Li Yi, Su said Taiwan has been “nice” in dealing with the matter, “unlike Beijing, which has moved to jail Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) for five years simply because he had made a few remarks online,” the report quoted him.    [FULL STORY]

Taiwan develops Asia’s first ASF rapid test kit

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/13
By: Yu Hsiao-han and Lee Hsin-Yin 

Taipei, April 13 (CNA) A Taiwanese biotechnology company said Saturday that a rapid test kit it has developed for African swine fever (ASF) has been recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), making it the first such test provider in Asia.

According to Excelsior Bio-System (EBS), Inc., its kit can diagnose in 10 minutes if a live hog has contracted ASF, even if the animal is still in the incubation period, through detecting the presence of antibodies against the ASF virus protein p30.

The testing method can ascertain a case of ASF as early as 14 days after a hog is infected, said company executive Chang Chuan-hsing (張權星), adding that this is better than the world’s other existing rapid test kit, which was developed in Spain.

The Spanish diagnostic system targets antibodies against the ASF virus protein p72, which is generated later in the development of ASF, Chang explained.    [FULL  STORY]

Students form front against ‘fake news’

MOVEMENT: The front would call on TV stations to adhere to journalistic ethics, as they are the main source of information for older people, a spokesman said

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 14, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

A coalition of student groups yesterday announced the establishment of the Youth Front

Social Democratic Party Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya, left, lawyer Lai Chung-chiang, right, Academia Sinica Institute of Taiwan History associate research fellow Wu Rwei-ren, second right, and others participate in a news conference outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday following the establishment of the Youth Front for Boycotting Fake News.Photo: CNA

for Boycotting Fake News, with experts highlighting Beijing’s increased interference in Taiwan’s public communication channels.

More than 100 university and high-school student groups, along with more than 50 experts, have pledged to support the front, which was established last week.

The front’s creation followed student-led campaigns last month on National Taiwan University’s (NTU) and National Chengchi University’s campuses to boycott TV stations allegedly broadcasting false or biased news reports in favor of certain politicians, NTU Student Association president Michelle Wu (吳奕柔) told a news conference in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.

Front members said they would mail a pledge to produce verified and objective reports, as well as the Chinese-language book Critical Media Literacy (批判的媒體識讀), which is used as teaching material at Shih Hsin University, to six TV news stations to remind them of basic journalistic ethics.    [FULL  STORY]