Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/10
By: Liao Yu-yang and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, April 10 (CNA) Taiwan has asked to join, as a third party, a complaint by the United States against China filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over alleged intellectual property theft, according to a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) official.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative filed a complaint on March 23 against China, requesting consultations at the WTO for what it said were Chinese violations of the international organization’s rules on patent rights and licensing.

According to the WTO’s rules, this gave member countries that have a substantial interest in the matter a 10-day period to notify the organization that it would like to participate in the consultations as a third party.    [FULL  STORY]

DOING IT RIGHT: Yeh Jiunn-rong said he had given lectures in China while he was teaching at National Taiwan University, but was not paid for them

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 11, 2018
By: Jonathan Chin  /  Staff writer, with CNA

Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) yesterday denied allegations made earlier

in the day by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member Yu Shu-hui (游淑慧) that he had illegally taught in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Yu, who is running for a Taipei City Council seat, wrote on Facebook that Yeh had broken the law by teaching at Zhejiang University’s Guanhua Law School in December 2011 and January 2012, attaching a screenshot of the university’s Web site describing Yeh as a lecturer.

Yeh held a noontime news conference at the Ministry of the Interior, saying while he did give lectures in China, he did not receive compensation, which is in compliance with the law.

Yeh said he was a full-time National Taiwan University professor when he received an invitation from the law school’s then-vice president Zhu Xinli (朱新力) asking him to give lectures to Zhu’s “Government Regulations and Administrative Rule of Law” class.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-04-09

A Taiwanese NGO is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would lower the voting

age. Right now you have to be 20 years old to vote in elections in Taiwan. But voting rights activists are hoping to move the voting age down to 18.

A new poll has found that a majority of people in Taiwan support holding a referendum to decide whether to lower the voting age to 18. The Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare held a press conference on Monday to release the results. The alliance says that 52.6% of those surveyed are in favor of holding a referendum in conjunction with the year-end elections.

The alliance says that nearly half of those surveyed – 48.6% — support a constitutional amendment that would move the voting age from 20 down to 18.    [FULL  STORY]

China’s lures fuel a sense of insecurity in Taiwan, but many resolvable economic and societal problems lie closer to home.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/04/09
By: Yuan-Ming Chiao

China’s “31 incentives” – a policy aimed at attracting Taiwan’s professionals through access to mainland cultural industries and university research funding – have provoked heated debate and accusations of attempts to accelerate the ongoing brain drain, but Taiwan itself may be equally complicit in its own loss of professional and academic talent.

Some media organizations have painted those who head to China as greedy, turncoat opportunists. The government itself has wagged its finger at Taiwanese professors, warning them that it is illegal to take up teaching positions at Chinese universities or to apply for government research grants, but thousands are already there, and more are certain to follow. If nothing is done, professionals will leave to find greener pastures in China or elsewhere.

These accusations might have held water when aimed at entrepreneurs who precipitated the gutting of domestic manufacturing decades ago. They are more problematic when leveled at homegrown doctorates, thousands of whom are unable to find work due to shrinking enrollment and campus closures. Those lucky enough to be given a rare teaching position are overburdened and underpaid.

If Taiwan continues to view China as the sole culprit of its economic stagnation, it not only limits discussion of solutions needed to confront Taiwan’s societal malaise, but also puts Taiwan firmly in the backseat of its own economic and political destiny.
[FULL  STORY]

China’s Foreign Ministry say negotiations with the US currently impossible; Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance says Taiwanese electronics industry safe … for now

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/09
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – After Trump’s abrupt announcement that he would seek to

increase proposed tariffs on US$100 billion worth of Chines goods late last week, the trade conflict between China and the United states appears set to escalate in the coming days and weeks.

With markets on edge, and speculation about possible fallout running rampant, China on Friday intimated that it was “not afraid” of a trade war and had prepared an array of “comprehensive countermeasures,” in the event that Trump makes good on his proposed US$100 billion tariff threat. Then on Monday, April 9, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said that under current conditions negotiating with the U.S. is “impossible.”

AFP quoted Geng as saying “Up to now, Chinese and US officials have not held any negotiations on the trade dispute…Under the current conditions, it is impossible for the two sides to have any negotiations on this issue.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/09
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, April 9 (CNA) Graham Stuart, minister for investment at the United Kingdom’s

Department for International Trade, arrived in Taiwan Monday on a two-day visit to enhance bilateral collaboration on trade and investment.

During his visit, Stuart will announce a major new Taiwanese investment project in the U.K. and witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the U.K. and Taiwan on marine engineering in the offshore wind energy sector, according to the British Office in Taipei.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) welcomed the U.K. minister’s first visit to Taiwan, which it said will help build a closer bilateral partnership.

During a meeting with Stuart at the Presidential Office that day, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) lauded Taiwan and the U.K. as important trade partners.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 10, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Taipei City Council Speaker Wu Pi-chu (吳碧珠) yesterday announced that she would not

run for city councilor in the Nov. 24 local elections, heralding the end of her 37-year tenure.

Wu has been council speaker for five consecutive sessions.

She made the announcement at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Taipei City Council caucus as the new council session began.

KMT councilors presented Wu with a bouquet and KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Chih-bin (汪志冰) jokingly asked her if she would change her mind and stay in the council with them.

Wu immediately said “no” and added that her decision to leave was made based on her life plans.    [FULL  STORY]

Breitbart News
Date: 8 Apr 201865
By: John J. Xenakis 

In a further challenge to China, the Trump administration has approved a marketing

license that will allow U.S. manufacturers to sell submarine technology to Taiwan.

For years, Taiwan has tried to acquire submarines from other countries, but China has repeatedly used pressure and threats on those countries to prevent the sales. Taiwan purchased two submarines from the Netherlands in the 1980s, but China has successfully blocked other sales since then. In 2012, Taiwan began a program to build its own diesel submarines, but that program still required the purchase of submarine technology from other countries.

Early in 2017, U.S. manufacturers expressed an interest in working on the project with Taiwan, but needed approval in the form of a “marketing license” from the U.S. State Department. That license was finally issued this week.

The decision also means that the U.S. will be able to provide Taiwan with so-called “red” parts, or technology which the island is unable to produce itself, including torpedoes and missiles.    [SOURCE]

Voice of America
Date: April 08, 2018
By: Lisa Schlein

TAIPEI — Taiwan says it regrets that the “one China” policy insisted on by Beijing prevents it from providing much needed development aid to most countries in Africa.

Taiwan was in a relatively good diplomatic position in Africa several years ago. Taiwan’s Deputy Secretary-General for International Cooperation and Development, Pai-po Lee, says this made it possible for those countries that had diplomatic relations with Taiwan to benefit from his agency’s aid projects.

“Previously, we have over nine countries with Taiwan. For instance, Senegal, the Gambia, Chad, Niger, Liberia, Central Africa — also Sao Tome Principe… Six years ago, they still have relations with Taiwan. But, then they shifted to China,” said Pai-po Lee.
[FULL  STORY]

The largest sandstorm to hit Taiwan in five years dissipated on Sunday, but air quality remained poor

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/04/08
By:  Central News Agency

TAIPEI (CNA) — The largest sandstorm to sweep across Taiwan in five years gradually

dissipated on Sunday, but the air quality in Kaohsiung and Pingtung in the south remained poor as the condition was not right for dispersing atmospheric pollutants there, according to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).

As of 12 a.m. Sunday, the EPA’s Air Quality Index (AQI) flashed an orange warning, indicating unhealthy air for sensitive groups, at 10 stations in Kaohsiung and Pingtung and one station in the outlying island county of Kinmen, according to the EPA’s Taiwan Air Quality Monitoring Network.

Air quality was rated as either good or fair in the rest of Taiwan, the monitoring data showed.    [FULL  STORY]