‘INFURIATING’: The bakery chain said its support for the ‘1992 consensus’ has not changed and thanked Beijing for incentives that have eased the company’s access to China

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 16, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan-based bakery cafe 85°C (85度C) yesterday declared its support of

the so-called “1992 consensus” and the peaceful development of cross-strait ties after Chinese netizens threatened to boycott the chain after one of its branches in the US allegedly welcomed President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) with a customized gift package.

The company’s statement on its Chinese-language Web site came one day after China’s state-owned Global Times, in an online article, denounced a Los Angeles 85°C outlet for giving Tsai a gift bag when she stopped by for coffee on Sunday, calling it “infuriating.”    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-14

President Tsai Ing-wen has paid tribute to the late US president Ronald

Reagan during a stopover in the United States. Tsai noted Reagan’s contributions to Taiwan-US ties and used a quote from the late president to show Taiwan’s commitment to democracy.

President Tsai Ing-wen was in southern California on Monday, stopping over in the US before a trip to Central and South America. During her brief stay, she visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

In remarks delivered at the library, Tsai spoke about Reagan’s contributions to spreading democracy and ending the Cold War. She also spoke about his contributions to Taiwan-US relations.    [FULL  STORY]

Hippo that mauled a Taiwanese tourist at Lake Naivasha in Kenya shot dead

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/14
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The hippopotamus that mauled a Taiwanese

tourist at Kenya’s Lake Naivasha was shot by a park warden.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Hell’s Gate park warden Nelson Cheruiyot announced that the hippo had actually been shot to death hours after the incident on Aug. 11, reported the Daily Nation. Cheruiyot was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “Our officers tracked and shot the animal after the incident.”

The hippo attacks occurred at the Lake Naivasha Sopa Resort near Nairobi, Kenya just hours after a Kenyan fisherman was killed by a hippo in the same area.

In the first incident, 66-year-old Taiwanese tourist Chang Ming Chuang was taking photos of the lake Sunday afternoon when a hippo suddenly mauled his chest. The man’s injuries were severe, and he died quickly after being retrieved from the water, while others in Chang’s tour group also suffered injuries.     [FULL  STORY]

Your daily bulletin of Taiwan news, courtesy of ICRT.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/08/14
By: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT)

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is urging young Taiwanese living in the United States to return to Taiwan and develop their careers here.

Speaking at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, Tsai said they shouldn’t miss out on such an opportunity and if they opt to return to Taiwan there will be ample capital and the government will help them connect to local society.

Private sector investment is expected top to NT$3 trillion (US$97.4 billion) for the first time this year, she added in an address to some 1,200 expatriate Taiwanese.

Her visit, the first to the U.S. since President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act into law in March, was remarkable for allowing journalists to attend her engagements — signalling a loosening of protocol that had previously seen Taiwanese presidents keep their visits to the U.S. low-key.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/14
By: Wu Hsin-yun, Chang Jung-hsiang and S.C. Chang 

Taipei, Aug. 14 (CNA) A women’s rights group invited 59 members of the public, representing the number of Taiwanese comfort women who publicly identified themselves over the years, to stage a silent protest in front of Japan’s representative office in Taipei on Tuesday, International Comfort Women Day.

Also on Tuesday, the first monument commemorating comfort women in Taiwan was unveiled at a ceremony in Tainan City, attended by former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), an event that drew Japanese media attention, according to the United Evening News.

Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation holds activities on Aug. 14 each year to remind the public that the issue of comfort women has yet to be resolved and demand that Japan apologize for its World War II atrocities, including the forced recruitment of Taiwanese girls and women into military brothels.

This year, the foundation’s memorial event took the form of 59 people wearing black clothes and white masks staging a 8-minute-14-second silent protest in front of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, which represents Japanese interests in the absence of official diplomatic ties.
[FULL  STORY]

PARTNERSHIP: The US is no longer indifferent to US-Taiwan issues as Washington is now of the opinion that China should be contained, a National Policy Foundation fellow said

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 15, 2018
By: Lu Yi-hsuan and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA

Taiwan yesterday thanked the US for its continual support after US

President Donald Trump on Monday signed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019, which includes two provisions pertaining to Taiwan.

Taiwan would “continue to act in conjunction with the US government to stabilize and deepen the security partnership between Taiwan and the US in a mutually beneficial way,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday to make a transit stop before continuing on to Paraguay and Belize, also conveyed her gratitude to US officials in a meeting on Monday.

Taiwan’s national defense spending would continue to increase and the use of special budgets would be approved in the case of important purchases, Tsai said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-13

President Tsai Ing-wen is on a 9 day trip to visit allies Paraguay and Belize. She

was sent off this time by 4 F-16s on Sunday. (CNA photo)

President Tsai Ing-wen is on a 9 day trip to visit allies Paraguay and Belize. She was sent off this time by 4 F-16s on Sunday.

President Tsai Ing-wen took off on Sunday to visit allies Paraguay and Belize.

This time 4 F-16 fighter jets from Hualien accompanied her chartered plane during the take off. The fighter jets flew alongside the president’s plane to protect President Tsai and to honor the commander-in-chief.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan is shifting its diplomatic strategy to promote the economic development and welfare of its allies.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Ping Fang-li

Haiti, one of Taiwan’s 18 formal allies, seeks to benefit from a recent switch in Taiwanese investment strategy that will see Taiwan promote public and private sector cooperative investments in allied nations. The most important element of this proposed cooperation includes the provision of a power grid and distribution system to electrify the whole of Haiti, starting with its capital city, Port-au-Prince.

In the past, Taiwan encouraged private enterprises to invest in allied states, but its new strategy encourages public involvement in agriculture, infrastructure, and animal husbandry investments. Haiti hopes to see an immediate payoff as, at present, less than one-third of the country has access to electricity.

Liberty Times reported that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse paid a visit to Taiwan at the end of May to start bilateral negotiations with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and to sign a joint communiqué agreeing to strengthen cooperation between the two countries. The two heads of state also reached a consensus to set up a high-level task force to jointly draft, within the following 60 days, the terms of the cooperative efforts needed to develop and improve Haiti’s economy and infrastructure, as well as potential channels for attracting more investment from Taiwanese companies.

If negotiations continue without a hitch, then the agreement and contracts will be signed by the end of the year, marking the very first time Taiwan will cooperate with an ally under the Official Development Assistance (ODA) model. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ODA constitutes “flows of official financing administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries … and which are concessional in character with a grant element of at least 25 percent (using a fixed 10 percent rate of discount).”   [FULL  STORY]

History professor Jim Lee said Chiang’s zero-sum mindset led to Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation today

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Ｗhile Beijing is escalating its bullying of Taiwan by excluding the country’s presence in as many international conferences and sports events as it can, a scholar said bluntly on Sunday that former ruler Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) is also responsible for Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation.

There is a perennial debate about the main culprit responsible for Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation inside the country, along with the external forces applied by Communist China. In a workshop that discussed how the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should be transformed on Sunday, Aug. 12, history professor Jim Lee (李筱峰) said Chiang’s zero-sum mindset has led to Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation today, according to a UDN report.

Lee reminded the audience of the atrocities committed by the Kuomintang leader Chiang during the White Terror era that destroyed the lives of an unknown number of well-educated Taiwanese people, to eliminate internal threats to his dictatorship and to consolidate his rule. “There is no country seeking transitional justice would allow for, or build a memorial hall for a dictator,” said Lee.

Lee is a full-time professor at the National Taipei University of Education’s graduate school of Taiwanese Culture, and has published 40 books since 1978 covering the history and politics of Taiwan.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, Aug. 13 (CNA) Sitting at the bedside of her elderly mother, a weeping woman surnamed Hsieh (謝) offered profuse thanks to Supraph, an Indonesian caregiver, for saving her bedridden mother trapped in a deadly fire at a hospital in New Taipei early Monday.

“My mother would not have survived the fire had it not been for Adi,” Hsieh told CNA in the hospital’s emergency room, referring to Supraph who has taken care of Hsieh’s 92-year-old mother since January.

The fire that reportedly broke out at around 4:30 a.m. in the seventh floor long-term care ward in the Xinzhuang (新莊), New Taipei, branch of Taipei Hospital has left nine people dead and 16 injured — 10 with serious injuries and six with minor injuries.

“Adi was very brave and kind-hearted. She didn’t run for her own life when the fire occurred, and the other migrant caregivers didn’t either,” Hsieh said. “The patients looked after by migrant caregivers were all safely evacuated.”    [FULL  STORY]