RESPONSIBILITY: Two US senators have introduced a bill aimed at developing a policy for the US to support Taiwan’s participation in international organizations

Taipei Times
Date: May 27, 2018
By: Aaron Tu, Yao Chieh-hsiu and Jake Chung  /  Staff Reporters, with Staff Writer, and CNA, Washington

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday evening met with US Senator Cory

Gardner, who at the last minute added Taipei to his official tour of Asia to lend support to Taiwan amid China’s intensifying suppression of the nation’s international space.

Less than a month after the Dominican Republic cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Burkina Faso on Thursday announced that it was also severing ties with Taipei, bringing the number of the nation’s diplomatic allies to 18.

China and Burkina Faso yesterday signed an agreement establishing diplomatic relations.

Gardner, who is chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy, on the night before his departure from the US decided to include Taiwan in his tour of Asia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-25

The foreign minister, Joseph Wu, says he still has confidence in Taiwan’s diplomacy. Wu

was speaking on Friday at National Chengchi University in Taipei, a day after Burkina Faso broke off formal ties with Taiwan.

Wu said there is room for Taiwan despite the country’s difficulties on the diplomatic front especially at a time of strained cross-strait ties. He also said the government will strengthen ties with leading democracies and major international organizations around the world.

“Our diplomacy has never been defeated. That’s because we have many young and senior diplomats. The joint efforts made by all government agencies and the public mean that Taiwan’s diplomatic space is actually a lot larger and better than many other countries,” said Wu.    [FULL  STORY]

Data suggests Taiwan voters increasingly identify as non-partisan.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/05/25
By: Austin Horng-En Wang and Yeh-Lih Wang

In the past two years, one of the most important phenomenon in Taiwan politics is the emergence of non-partisans. For the first time since democratization, more than half of Taiwanese voters do not support any party in Taiwan.

This dramatic change may attribute to the electoral reform in 2005 as well as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)’s performance. The shift will undoubtedly impact on the major parties’ intraparty politics and strategic choices. However, what these non-partisans want and where they are from remains unclear.

To begin with, the figure below shows the percentage of partisans and non-partisans in the past 10 waves of the Taiwan National Security Survey (TNSS) from 2002 to 2017. TNSS is a representative telephone survey sponsored by Duke University and conducted by National Chengchi University. After Tsai won the presidency in early 2016, the proportion of non-partisans in Taiwan reached an historic high of 48 percent. In late 2017, the record was broken again, breaking 51 percent, representing a doubling of the proportion of non-partisans in Taiwan since 2011. Today, more than half of Taiwanese people do not attach to any party in Taiwan, according to the survey.

Who are these non-partisans? Analysis of TNSS 2017 fails to reveal any unique characteristics among them. Applying the chi-squared test shows that non-partisans share the same socio-demographic background as partisans across age, gender, race, level of education, language usage, and residency. Besides, Taipei City does not have a higher proportion of non-partisans than other municipal areas or counties. The decline of partisanship has become a general trend among all Taiwanese people.
[FULL  STORY]

Angry mob of 300 vigilantes attacks the home of uncle suspected of killing and molesting 5-year-old girl in Changhua

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/25
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An angry lynch mob of 300 vigilantes last night (May 24)

ransacked the Changhua home of a man suspected of killing and molesting his 5-year-old niece when they believed that he had been released from police custody, reported Apple Daily.

Last night, a rumor spread on Facebook that the suspect, surnamed Yang (楊), was already going to be released on bail, and though this was false information, it was repeatedly shared on the social media platform. By 9 p.m. last night, an angry mob of 300 (with some reports saying 500) vigilantes had surrounded Yang’s house in Changhua County’s Tianwei Township, with some reportedly coming as far away as Tainan and Chiayi to seek revenge for the girl.

The hysteric crowd broke their way into Yang’s home where they smashed furniture with baseball bats, shattered windows, set off fireworks and tossed about hell money to curse the family. Fearing for her life, Yang’s mother fled to the nearby police station, and a large part of the mob followed her to call for her son’s release so they could exact their vengeance.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taowan
Date: 2018/05/25
By: Chiang Chin-yeh and Y.F. Low

Washington, May 24 (CNA) The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed its

annual defense policy bill for fiscal 2019 including provisions to help strengthen Taiwan’s military capability.

The US$717 billion National Defense Authorization Act cleared the House 351-66.

Section 1253, headed “Strengthening Taiwan’s Force Readiness,” would direct the U.S. secretary of defense to conduct a comprehensive assessment, in consultation with appropriate counterparts of Taiwan, on ways to enhance and reform Taiwan’s military forces, particularly Taiwan’s reserve forces, according to the text of the bill published by the House.

The assessment would also require the development of recommendations to strengthen bilateral cooperation and improve Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, it stated.
[FULL  STORY]

FALSE CLAIM? Chen Ming-tong said former president Ma Ying-jeou did not mention ‘different interpretations’ during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015

Taipei Times
Date: May 26, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Acceptance of the so-called “1992 consensus” is not the answer to Taiwan’s diplomatic

setbacks, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said yesterday, adding that the government plans to introduce new policies in addition to tightening its screening of applications by Chinese officials to visit Taiwan.

Chen made the remarks at an afternoon news conference in Taipei, hours after a number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-friendly experts attributed Burkina Faso’s decision to cut ties with Taiwan to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) refusal to acknowledge the “1992 consensus” — a line usually adopted by the pan-blue camp when it comes to the Tsai administration’s diplomatic predicament.

Burkina Faso on Thursday became the fourth diplomatic ally the nation has lost since Tsai’s inauguration in May 2016, after Sao Tome and Principe in December 2016, Panama in June last year and the Dominican Republic on April 30.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-24

Health minister Chen Shih-chung is accusing China of lying at the World Health

Assembly.

China’s representative had said that Taiwan had participated in virtually all of the WHO’s technical meetings in the past 5 years. But Chen said that from 2009-2017, there were 154 WHO technical meetings, but Taiwan only attended 46. In 2017, Taiwan applied to attend 18 technical meetings, but less than 30% were approved. Chen accused China of lying. He said this is a custom of China’s – to lie to cover up the truth.

China also claims that Taiwan has clear channels of information and reporting with the WHO. But Chen said that China does not give relevant disease prevention information to Taiwan. He mentioned a Taiwan tuberculosis case that had to wait 8 months before it heard from the WHO. Chen said China’s exclusion of Taiwan has created this gap in world disease prevention.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan will not be European regulators primary target when it comes to enforcing the GDPR.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/05/24
By: Timothy Ferry, Taiwan Business TOPICS Magazine

The European Union (EU)’s new data protection regime, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will come into force on May 25, with huge implications for how global businesses, including those in Taiwan, handle personal data.

The GDPR, which succeeds the Data Protection Directive of 1995, aims to harmonize data-protection regulations across the EU. But the sweeping guidelines apply to any organization or business that has even the slightest connection with the EU, not just those located within its territory. It will apply not only to firms that market, sell, or otherwise trade with Europe, but also to those that hire Europeans.

Violating the restrictions could prove costly, with fines reaching as high as 20 million euros (US$23.5 million) or 4 percent of total global revenues, whichever is higher.

John Eastwood, a partner with the Taipei law firm Eiger, describes the European approach as “a massive tightening of the rules on data protection.” Is Taiwan ready for engagement with the EU in the GDPR era?    [FULL  STORY]

Japanese retailer Muji fined 200,000 yuan in Shanghai for listing Taiwan as a country on clothes hangers

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/24
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In the latest salvo in its war over names, or “namefare”

as the National Interest has dubbed it, Japanese retailer MUJI has been fined 200,000 yuan (US$31,000) in Shanghai for packaging that lists Taiwan as a country, reported Reuters.

In an official statement, the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce said that Muji was fined because last August imported 119 clothes hangers from Japan that had Taiwan listed as their “country of origin,” reported state-run media outlet China Industry and Commerce News on Wednesday.

The fine was imposed by the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce in late March because the labels breached China’s advertising law by “hurting China’s dignity and interest.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/24
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, May 24 (CNA) A Greenpeace report released Thursday identified four

Taiwanese men convicted of human trafficking in the fishing sector in Cambodia in 2014 who are currently working as brokers for migrant fishermen in Taiwan after fleeing justice.

In the report titled “Misery at Sea,” Greenpeace presented evidence related to three high-profile cases involving trafficking and abuse of migrant crew members to highlight the failure of Taiwan’s authorities to address the issue.

Greenpeace investigated the whereabouts of five Taiwanese men who originally worked at the defunct Giant Ocean International Co., a recruitment agency in Cambodia.

The men were sentenced to 10 years in prison for trafficking more than 1,000 Cambodians to work in slave-like conditions on fishing boats, but fled to Taiwan before serving their sentences.    [FULL  STORY]