Two studies list ways Taiwan could win in a war against China

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/09/26
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The magazine Foreign Policy yesterday presented key points from two recent studies which demonstrated ways in which Taiwan could successfully repel an invasion by China.

In an article posted yesterday (Sept. 25), Foreign Policy drew from a research paper written by Michael Beckley, a political scientist at Tufts University, and the book “The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia,” by Ian Easton, a fellow at the Project 2049 Institute. The magazine concludes that based on this research, the worst nightmare for Chinese commanders is being forced to fight a Taiwanese “enemy that is better trained, better motivated, and better prepared for the rigors of warfare than troops the PLA could throw against them.”

The article first presents the rosy, best-case scenario for the PLA in which massive waves of missile strikes take out all strategic positions and assassinations of key political leaders lays the groundwork for the smooth execution of the largest amphibious invasion seen in the history of the world. However, the biggest flaw in this plan is that it would depend entirely on the element of surprise and a glacially slow response by the U.S. and Japan, which in the modern digital communication age is highly unlikely.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/26
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) The United States has always been supportive of

Taiwan’s full membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and is making sure its membership will not be compromised, a visiting U.S. official said Tuesday.

“The United States always is supportive of ensuring that Taiwan’s full membership (in APEC) is never impeded, and I think there are many other economies who feel the same way and have the same reaction,” Matthew J. Matthews, deputy assistant secretary and U.S. senior official for APEC, told CNA during an interview in Taipei.

Matthews was asked to comment on a report Tuesday citing Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) as saying that China was attempting to block Taiwan’s participation in the annual 2018 APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea in November.

China has stepped up efforts to suppress Taiwan in the diplomatic sphere by luring away Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and trying to block Taiwan’s participation in international forums, including APEC, Wu charged in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times.    [FULL  STORY]

‘LOW-CLASS’: The Taipei mayor said he has grown tired of the smear campaigns directed at him, such as the rumor that he was involved in organ trafficking

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 27, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday rejected a claim that he was

involved in a sexual transaction in China a few years ago.

Political commentator Yang Hsien-hung (楊憲宏) said at a political talk show on Monday that Ko had bragged to former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) that during a visit to China someone had offered him a booklet filled with photographs of prostitutes and told him that if he wrote his hotel room number next to the photograph of the woman of his choosing, she would go to his room.

Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), was also present at the dinner in Lu’s home, reprimanded Ko for his remarks and the two had an argument, Yang said.

Asked about the remarks, Ko said Yang was not in Lu’s home when they had dinner, adding that he could not understand what story he heard and from whom.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-09-25

Premier William Lai apologized on Tuesday for failing to manage flooding

that has caused massive damage in central and southern Taiwan.

Lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang form a line at the Legislature and chant slogans calling on Premier Lai to reflect on his mistakes.

One of Lai’s pledges after he became premier was to put infrastructure in place to prevent flooding. However, heavy rainfall at the end of August in central and southern Taiwan led to severe flooding. Over 46,000 hectares of land was flooded and more than 33,000 households were affected. Agricultural losses and damage to schools has exceeded NT$ 1.35 billion (US$44 million).

On behalf of the government, Lai apologized to all affected by the flooding. He said he has set up a task force to oversee recovery efforts. He said he has also asked the economics ministry to review past flood management plans to better integrate resources when dealing with future incidents.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese residents in Norway are being designated as Chinese. We speak to the leader of a group of Taiwanese students who intend to protest the case in Norway and at the European Court of Human Rights.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/25
By: David Green

In Norway, a group of Taiwanese students are organizing a class action lawsuit aimed at the Norwegian government for changing the nationality on Taiwanese people’s residency permits from Taiwan to China.

The group is attempting to crowd source funding to see them through three instances at court in Norway. If unsuccessful in overturning the change in designation, the group then intends to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The group is represented in the media by a Taiwanese lawyer named Joseph, a former employee of a business law firm.

The News Lens spoke to Joseph while he was in the United States attempting to raise awareness of the group’s case and cause. He shared his sense of frustration at being misidentified, and concern at the threat of being deported to China were he to be accused of a crime by the authorities in Beijing.    [FULL  STORY]

Matthews will discuss APEC and U.S.-Taiwan trade issues: AIT

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/09/25
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The United States government’s Ambassador for

the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), Matthew Matthews, arrived in Taiwan Tuesday for trade talks, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said.

Matthews’ official title is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands and Ambassador for APEC.

The aims of his visit were to discuss APEC issues and topics concerning U.S.-Taiwan trade with Taiwanese government officials, the Central News Agency quoted AIT as saying.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/25
By: Cheng Chi-feng and Elizabeth Hsu 

Kaohsiung, Sept. 25 (CNA) Law enforcement personnel arrested five suspects and seized more than 5,000 kilograms of ketamine, marijuana, and semi-finished ketamine in a raid of a factory in southern Taiwan, the Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice (MJIB) said Tuesday.

The ketamine factory, located on the border between Chiayi County and Tainan, was the biggest to have been busted in Taiwan’s history, MJIB officials said at a press briefing in Kaohsiung.

MJIB agents in Kaohsiung described the factory as a turnkey factory exported from China, with equipment, raw materials and drug-producing technology all shipped from across the Taiwan Strait.

With China beefing up its anti-drug campaigns by introducing harsh punishments, there have been signs suggesting that underground drug factories there are being relocated to Taiwan, the MJIB said.
[FULL  STORY]

‘ROCK BOTTOM’: Ruey-Beei Wu said NTU’s presidential election should be redone from the initial review stage, including the committee and university council votes

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 26, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

Ruey-Beei Wu (吳瑞北), a National Taiwan University (NTU) electrical

engineering professor and a candidate for university presidential, yesterday filed an administrative litigation against the Ministry of Education and the school, asking that the university redo its presidential election from the beginning instead of from the final round of voting.

As a candidate, he would be able ask the court to speed up the judicial process and help resolve the controversy more effectively, he wrote on Facebook.

The university’s presidential election in January became embroiled in controversies after NTU finance professor Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) was elected president and then accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-09-24

People around Taiwan are celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival on Monday, with the

smell of barbecue lingering in the air throughout the three-day weekend. But with clouds rolling into Taipei, it is unclear whether the full moon – the star of the holiday – will be visible on Monday night.

After nearly a week of unseasonably hot and sunny days, the weather on Saturday began to feel a bit more like autumn in Taiwan. Northeasterly winds swept in, bringing low temperatures of 22-23 degrees Celsius, and increasing the chance of rain.

Unstable weather has also brought pollution – with unhealthy air affecting Taiwan from Thursday, September 20, through Sunday September 23    [FULL  STORY]

Island to send deputy, avoiding risk of stoking tensions between Washington and Beijing, analyst says

South China Morning Post 
Date: 24 September, 2018
By: Lawrence Chung

Taiwan’s defence minister will skip an annual security conference in the United States and send a deputy instead, a move that could avoid inflaming already tense relations between Washington and Beijing, observers said.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence said on Monday that deputy minister Chang Guan-chung would attend the US-Taiwan Defence Industry Conference in Annapolis, Maryland, late next month, as he did last year.

Taiwanese news outlets quoted an unnamed official as saying that Defence Minister Yen Teh-fa was originally willing to take part in the event but later decided that he had to reassess the nature and timing of the visit to determine if it would benefit Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]