Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/03/24
By: Miao Chung-hen and Flor Wang

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) Taiwanese scholars have voiced concern about Kaohsiung Mayor

Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) recent meetings with Beijing’s top officials in Hong Kong and Macau, saying the visits indirectly implied that Taiwan recognizes the “one country, two systems” formula imposed by China in the two territories.

Han said he would not talk about politics during his current visit to Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and Xiamen, a trip the Kaohsiung mayor has advertised as one intended to get orders for his city’s agricultural products.

But Han’s visits to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong and Macau — China’s highest authorities in charge of managing the “one country, two systems” model in the two territories — have aroused suspicions in Taiwan, the scholars said.

“As a popularly elected local government chief in Taiwan, Han’s meetings have undoubtedly aroused grave public concern that he has been trapped in the ‘one country, two system’ formula framed by Beijing,” said Cross-Strait Policy Association Secretary-General Wang Chih-sheng (王智盛).    [FULL  STORY]

MESSAGE OF MISUNDERSTANDING: Italy confirmed its adherence to ‘the policy of a single China,’ but CCTV’s translation said Rome said it followed the ‘one China’ principle

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 25, 2019
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday accused Chinese media of attempting to

mislead the world by purposefully confusing the “policy of a single China” mentioned in the joint communique signed by Italy and China on Saturday with Beijing’s “one China” principle.

The communique was issued during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to Rome, and Italy simply reiterated its conformity to the “one China” policy followed by the EU, the ministry said said in a press release.

“However, Chinese media deliberately translated the [Italian for] ‘one China’ policy into Beijing’s frequently cited ‘one China’ principle in an apparent attempt to confuse the international community and to unilaterally distort policy discourse about the ‘status quo’ across the Taiwan Strait,” it said.

It said such a move is reprehensible and not conducive to cross-strait relations or the maintenance of peace and stability in the region.    [FULL  STORY]

Han Kuo-yu, a rising star in the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, was responding to a call by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and politicians back home to clarify intentions over a Friday dinner meeting with Wang Zhimin, director of Beijing’s liaison office.

“I’m bringing along my wife, my deputy mayor and my team to Hong Kong, under the watch of 10 city councillors. Am I really going to sell out Kaohsiung? I’m only here to sell fruits and fish products,” Han told reporters in Macau at noon on Saturday.

He met Fu Ziying, director of Beijing’s liaison office in the casino hub.    [FULL  STORY]

Could it happen?

The National Interest
March 22, 2019 
By: Stratfor Worldview

Enhanced security cooperation between Taiwan and the United States could easily expand as the pair work to balance against China’s increased military presence in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea . On Nov. 5, Taiwanese Defense Minister Yen Teh-fa told legislators that his government would consider allowing the U.S. Navy access to Taiping Island if Washington requested it. The remark is by no means conclusive, though Yen emphasized that the United States could be granted access for humanitarian or regional security operations if they aligned with Taiwan’s interests.

Allowing the United States access to the island would further challenge the status quo at a time when the U.S. Navy is stepping up its presence in the Taiwan Strait . Over the past few months, U.S. warships have twice passed through the Taiwan Strait in a possible attempt to standardize patrols there or even pave the way for an aircraft carrier group to transit through. And in October, a U.S. Navy research ship docked in Taiwan’s southern port city of Kaohsiung for refueling. Moreover, Taiwanese media has speculated that U.S. vessels will dock in Taiwan as part of naval exercises that are expected to occur in the region this month. However, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson declined to confirm or deny such a possibility.    [FULL  STORY]

Lai’s directions seen as response to comments by President Tsai

Taiwan News   
Date: 2019/03/23 
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former Premier William Lai (賴清德) presented his “Three Realistic Directions” for Taiwan on Facebook recently, apparently as a response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “Three Preconditions.”

Both registered for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) primaries during the past week. A five-member committee formed by the party to resolve the candidacies met for the first time Saturday, reports said.

In his Facebook post, Lai explained that he saw the term “Taiwan Independence” as an abbreviation of “Taiwan is already independent,” “Taiwan should be its own master and protect democracy.”

As a “realistic worker for Taiwan Independence,” the former premier named three elements of his realism.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/03/23
By: Wen Kuei-hsiang, Elaine Hou and Chung Yu-chen

Koror, Palau, March 23 (CNA) Two scholars believe that the presence of Amy J. Hyatt, the United States ambassador to Palau, at a banquet hosted by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday reflected growing ties between Taiwan and the U.S.

On Friday, Hyatt also attended a state banquet hosted by Palau President Tommy Remengesau, Jr. for Tsai, who is currently in Palau on the first leg of her tour of some of Taiwan’s Pacific allies.

Hyatt was seated at the main table Saturday, and her interaction with Tsai was limited to little more than handshakes and exchanges of greetings.

But Hyatt’s presence showed the United States is putting great emphasis on Tsai’s Pacific visit, Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), an executive board member of Taiwan Thinktank, told CNA.    [FULL  STORY]

‘CALCULATED ARRANGEMENT’: The president said that Han’s visit to China’s liaison office might have been designed to create an impression of ‘one country, two systems’

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 24, 2019
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

A meeting between Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and the head of China’s

liaison office in Hong Kong has incurred criticism from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who said it could give the impression that Beijing’s “one country, two systems” model might be applicable to Taiwan. Han was also criticized by several pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmakers, who slammed what they called an endorsement of China’s “distorted implementation” of the framework.

Han is leading a 28-member delegation on a visit to Hong Kong, Macau and the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Xiamen to promote trade before returning to Kaohsiung on Thursday next week.

On Friday, he met with Chinese Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Director Wang Zhimin (王志民). The meeting was not included in the itinerary published by Han’s office prior to the trip.

Tsai, who was in Palau on a state visit to three Pacific allies, yesterday said that the office is a key organization responsible for China’s implementation of the “one country, two systems” framework in Hong Kong.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 22 March, 2019
By: Paula Chao

If you breathe the air in Taiwan, you’ll definitely want to watch today’s program! A shocking exposé in CommonWealth Magazine earlier this month explains how factories and power plants are taking advantage of loopholes to cover up excessive pollution. We talk with one of the authors of a six-month investigative report, senior reporter Liu Kwang-yin, who helps shed some light on thes issue.

*Read the report here:  https://bit.ly/2OhPfId

*Find out if there are smokestacks in your backyard (CH): https://bit.ly/2HCode2

Ian Rowen looks back on the 2014 Sunflower occupation and its lasting effects on Taiwan.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/03/22
By: Cat Thomas 

Readers who followed the Sunflower and Umbrella movements may well be familiar with the works of Dr. Ian Rowen (伊恩). At the time of the movements, he was affiliated at Academia Sinica, supported by a Fulbright fellowship to work on his PhD in Geography, which he completed at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2016. He was present at both protests, and wrote on them for media publications including The Guardian. He went on to publish academic papers based on his observations, although his initial involvement with the Sunflower Movement was not originally intended to be an academic endeavor.

Few people could be better placed to write on the region. Rowen, 39, was born in Alaska, grew up both there and Los Angeles, and has since spent most of his time somewhere in Asia. He first visited Asia as a 15-year-old obsessed with Balinese gamelan, and then went on a college junior year exchange to Hong Kong, he recalls, “on something of a whim, thinking I wanted to learn to to read Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu in the original, and meanwhile see what post-handover Hong Kong was like.”

He followed this up by backpacking around Southeast Asia, passed Y2K at Angkor Wat, and the following summer visited Taiwan for the first time before backpacking from Xi’an to Xinjiang and then to the Tibetan Plateau. Soon after graduating college, he moved to Taiwan to study Chinese and later work in media before moving to China, where he was a Visiting Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. This was followed by a stint in the Philippines, then graduate school in Colorado, then back to Taiwan for his aforementioned postdoc. Over the course of his rather illustrious career, he’s worked as a translator, journalist, musician, tour guide, hotelier and entrepreneur.

Currently the Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, a position he has held since 2017, Rowen’s broad interests and skills – he’s also the Meta-Regional Representative for Burning Man and a fellow of the World Economic Forum (WEF) – are reflected his cross-appointments to the School of Art, Design, and Media, and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.    [FULL  STORY]

After being arrested for hurling his wife off Taiwan Taoyuan airport stairway, Chinese-American man shouts ‘Trump save me’

Taiwan News   
Date: 2019/03/22 
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After a Chinese-American man Wan (萬) was arrested for shoving his wife off the fourth-floor staircase in the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, he was overheard shouting “Trump save me,” according to Liberty Times.

Wan, 32, had previously been working as an actuary in the U.S. However, he lost his job and was unable to find new employment.

In February of this year, Wan took his Taiwanese-Canadian wife surnamed Chang (張), 33, and their child to Taiwan for the Lunar New Year holiday. Wan had originally planned to return to the U.S. in April.

On Sunday (March 17), Wan had an argument with Chang over his inability to find a job and their child’s living conditions. Wan then angrily stormed off toward the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Chang was in hot pursuit.    [FULL  STORY]