‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’:The minister of education said he hopes the schemes surrounding Kuan Chung-ming’s election would come to an end with his resignation

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 15, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) yesterday resigned over what he said were

political manipulations and slander directed at the ministry amid a months-long controversy surrounding the legality of National Taiwan University (NTU) president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) heading the nation’s leading university.

Pan yesterday told the media that he had tendered his resignation to Premier William Lai (賴清德).

Although he is not one to fear challenges at work, he decided to resign after much thought, to curb “politically motivated attacks and slander” leveled at the ministry over the case, Pan said.

The political manipulations had given ministry employees unnecessary stress and placed an uncalled-for burden on them, he said.

Kuan was on Jan. 5 elected NTU president, but his inauguration was postponed after he faced allegations of a conflict of interest in the election, plagiarism and illegally teaching in China as a government-contracted professor.    [FULL  STORY]

SAGE ADVICE: Former US secretary of defense William Perry said China ‘called it a drill, accept it as a drill’ about next week’s PLA drill, as he swung through on a book tour

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 14, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Former US secretary of defense William Perry yesterday urged the Taiwanese government

to “play it cool” ahead of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) planned live-fire drill in the Taiwan Strait next week.

“My advice will be as long as the Chinese do not violate your boundary and sovereignty, play it cool. Don’t read something into [what] might or might not be there,” Perry told media in Taipei.

“They called it a drill, accept it as a drill,” he said, referring to the PLA’s scheduled exercise that is scheduled to take place from 8am to midnight on Wednesday next week in a zone 20km from the coast of Quanzhou Bay in Fujian Province.

Perry, who served as US secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997 under then-US president Bill Clinton, was on a whirlwind 24-hour visit to Taiwan to promote the Mandarin version of his book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-04-13

President Tsai Ing-wen says a military exercise at the naval base in Suao on Taiwan’s

northeast coast is not aimed at competing with China.

Tsai was speaking Friday morning after boarding a Kidd-class destroyer to oversee the drill. This is the first time that the president has boarded a navy ship to supervise an exercise since taking office in May 2016.

The president said the port defense drill demonstrated Taiwan’s military capability in the air, at sea, underwater and on the ground, using self-defense and multilayer deterrence tactics.

On Thursday, China held its largest ever maritime drill in the disputed South China Sea. Tsai rejected media speculation that Taiwan’s port drill sought to compete with China.
[FULL  STORY]

Despite all the bluster and hype, China’s live fire drill is actually taking place in Fujian Province’s Quanzhou Bay

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/13
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Despite the bluster and bravado, China’s live fire exercises set to take place in the Taiwan Strait, are actually situated in a small area right off the coast of Fujian Province.

China’s Ministry of National Defense announced yesterday (April 12) that it will be holding a live fire drill in the Taiwan Strait, setting off alarms in Taiwan and many Western countries. The mover appeared to mark an escalation of President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) aggressive stance against Taiwan Independence and on disputes in the South China Sea.

The English version of the announcement reads as follows:

“FJ0011 TAIWAN STRAIT MILITARY EXERCISES IN AREA BOUNDED BY THE LINES JOINING 24-51.4N/118-50.0E、24-50.3N/118-51.3E、24-49.5N/118-50.4E、24-50.6N/118-49.2E FROM 180000UTC TO 181600UTC APR. ENTERING PROHIBITED.”

Though there were fears that this would signal a live fire exercise close to Taiwan, similar to 1996 when missiles fired from China near Keelung and Kaohsiung in an attempt to intimidate Taiwanese voters, this test is staying much closer to China. In fact, as can be seen in the photo below, it is taking place on the outer edge of Quanzhou Bay.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/13
By: Chiang Chin-yeh and Flor Wang

Washington, April 12 (CNA) U.S. Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo asserted

Thursday the importance of Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan, which he noted is consistent with its one-China policy.

“I think it’s important as much as America has done for quite some time. Frankly, both the administrations, every administration, Republican and Democrat alike, we provide arms sales necessary, consistent with that one-China policy,” Pompeo said when answering questions from Republican Senator Cory Gardner during a nomination hearing at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Pompeo, currently chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to replace Rex Tillerson, who was fired by Trump from the post last month.

As to the Taiwan Travel Act that took effect in March to bolster exchanges of visits by Taiwanese and U.S. officials at all levels, Pompeo gave no answer when Gardner asked him: “What level would you authorize State Department personnel to visit Taiwan?”
[FULL  STORY]

Business Times
Date: Apr 12, 2018

[TAIPEI] Taiwan hopes to tackle the most pressing of first-world problems through

increased government intervention in people’s love lives.

The interior ministry says it will organise more official match-making events in 2018 as part of a push to reverse a rapid ageing of Taiwan’s 24 million people.

The island recorded more deaths than births in March for a second straight month, and government data released on Tuesday show that Taiwan officially became an “aged society” last month, with more than 14 per cent of the population aged 65 or older.

Only Japan, where 28 per cent are in the 65-and-over club, has a higher proportion of elderly people in East Asia.    [FULL  STORY]

Quartz
Date: April 12, 2018
By: Josh Horwitz

In China, sometimes everything is political—even an emoji.

Emojipedia, a reference website that tracks the use and evolution of emoji, notes iOS

users in China aren’t shown the emoji for Taiwan’s flagon Apple’s default keyboard. Usually the flag appears in iOS. But within mainland China, it’s completely absent.

The iOS emoji keyboard doesn’t show the Taiwan flag at all if the region is set to China. The character presents as a missing character (☒) when viewed on websites or in messages on a Chinese iPhone https://emojipedia.org/flag-for-taiwan/ … pic.twitter.com/2NaAiyytX4

Apple first introduced Taiwan to its emoji keyboard in 2015 as part of a beta iOS 9 update. The flags for Chad, Greenland, and Vatican City came along with it.

It’s not clear when specifically Taiwan’s flag was removed, or, indeed, if it was ever introduced on iOS for China at all. Users on forums at MacRumors, a popular site for Apple-related news, spotted the absence in early 2017. Apple did not respond to Quartz’s questions on the matter.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-04-12

President Tsai Ing-wen is scheduled to oversee an exercise at the naval base in Suao on

Taiwan’s northeast coast Friday. Reports have it that the exercise was in light of recent Chinese military drills near Taiwan. Defense ministry spokesperson Chen Chung-chi said Thursday that the purpose of the exercise is to upgrade Taiwan’s defense capability. He said it’s also for Taiwanese people to see the country’s military strength.

Meanwhile, legislators on Thursday questioned Taiwan’s military preparedness against the Chinese armed forces.

While the US Navy has been seen around the waters off the Philippines recently, the Chinese military has also been holding drills in the South China Sea. Citing those activities, legislators are concerned about whether Taiwan’s military is prepared for any move from China.    [FULL  STORY]

Wreckage of a missing Black Hawk helicopter along with two bodies on board were found around 2 p.m. on Thursday, more than 60 days after the helicopter carrying six people went missing off the coast of eastern Taiwan

Taiwan News 
Date: Date: 2018/04/12
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Wreckage of a missing Black Hawk helicopter along with two bodies on board were found around 2 p.m. on Thursday, more than 60 days after the helicopter carrying six people went missing off the coast of eastern Taiwan.

The UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, operated by the National Airborne Service Corps, went missing on a return flight to Taitung in southeastern Taiwan on February 5, after picking up a patient on the outlying island of Lanyu. The helicopter was carrying two pilots, one mechanic and one nurse in addition to the patient and a family member.
[FULL  STORY]