Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/29
By: Chiang Pei-ling and Ko Lin

Taipei, March 29 (CNA) A television celebrity close to the father of a Taiwanese student arrested in the United States after allegedly threatening to shoot up his school, said Thursday the boy has always been well-mannered and polite, and the incident is a huge misunderstanding.

Tuo Tsung-kang (庹宗康), who co-hosts the popular TV talk show “The Gang of Kuo Kuan” (國光幫幫忙) with Sun Peng (孫鵬), urged netizens and the media not to blow the matter out of proportion and make things worse.

An Tso Sun (孫安佐), 18, the only child of Sun and Taiwanese opera singer Di Ying (狄鶯), started attending Bonner and Prendergast Catholic High School in Pennsylvania in the U.S. last fall and lives with a host family.    [FULL  STORY]

PENNSYLVANIA ARREST: Di Ying said the gun found in her son’s room was a prop for Halloween. He is being held on the misdemeanor charge of making terrorist threats

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 30, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA and AP

The mother and the defense attorney of a Taiwanese exchange student arrested at his

Pennsylvania high school on Tuesday for threatening to shoot up the school yesterday said his threat was “just a joke.”

Di Ying (狄鶯), a television and Taiwanese opera actress, told SET News that a gun found by US police in the bedroom of her son, Sun An-tso (孫安佐), was one that he took to the US to be used for a Halloween costume party.

She said the alleged threat to open fire at the school was either a joke or the result of a language misunderstanding, adding that she has hired a lawyer to represent her son.

Sun, 18, the only child of Di and actor Sun Peng (孫鵬), went to the US last fall to attend Bonner and Prendergast Catholic High School in Drexel Hill, and lived with a host family in Lansdowne.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-28

President Tsai Ing-wen says a joint diabetes prevention program launched together with

St Vincent and the Grenadines is a milestone for Taiwan’s medical diplomacy.

The Caribbean island nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines is one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. Tsai discussed the plan on Wednesday while meeting Louis Straker, St Vincent’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

Tsai said the joint plan will be the first aimed at preventing and tackling diabetes in Latin America and the Caribbean. She said the plan will not only strengthen diabetes prevention in St Vincent and the Grenadines but also strengthen ties.

Tsai said nearly 40 years of diplomatic ties and cooperation between Taiwan and St Vincent have produced visible results in a number of areas.    [SOURCE]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/28
By Brian Hioe

The recent hit to Taiwan’s steel industry raise questions about the nature of the relationship between Taiwan and the United States.

Concerns in Taiwan that it will be severely affected by steel and aluminum tariffs by the Trump administration are ironic, illustrating the perils of placing one’s faith in the Trump administration.

Perhaps Taiwan could learn something from this.

The Trump administration intends to instate a 10 percent tariff on aluminum and 25 percent tariff on steel, something that has provoked panic among American allies and warnings from China that raising tariffs in order to begin a trade war will not work out well for America.    [FULL  STORY]

Leaders of the European Union, including French president Emmanuel Macron, have also warned that the European Union will not hesitate to react to new American measures. Nevertheless, American president Donald Trump has been cavalier, claiming that a trade war could work in America’s benefit.

Taiwan stands to be severely affected by the trade tariffs, particularly seeing as America imported 5.67 percent of its steel products from Taiwan in 2017. Taiwan has faced penalties from other anti-dumping measures in the past.

Beijing residents asked to report any relatives residing or studying abroad in Taiwan

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/28
By: Renée Salmonsen , Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Chinese authorities have required households in Beijing’s

Chaoyang District to register any “foreign relations” with the local housing bureau.

Relatives living in Taiwan must also be reported, including any relatives who have previously spent time studying or living abroad, as well as expatriate family members who have returned to China.

Officials in the Chaoyang District alerted residents on March 20 that people with certain “foreign” relations are now required to provide more information to official registers.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/28
By: Wen Kuei-hsiang, Liu Kuan-ting, Matt Yu, Lu Hsin-hui and 
Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) The Legislature on Wednesday requested a formal report from

security officers and three government agencies on an incident in which a gun allegedly was accidentally fired by a security guard within 50 meters of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at her official residence late last year.

Kuomintang lawmaker Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲) said the incident should not be taken lightly and the legislative Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which she co-chairs, wishes to hear a report from the relevant agencies and decide on appropriate punishment.

Members of Tsai secret service detail, the National Security Bureau, the National Police Agency and the Military Police Command, therefore, will report on the matter to the legislative committee on April 2, she said.    [FULL  STORY]

SENSITIVE SUBJECT: Groups have called for those in charge of approving the restart to be held accountable after a trip was thought to be triggered by sensors

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2018
By: Huang Pei-chun, Lin Ching-hua and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

The No. 2 reactor at the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant which was restarted on Tuesday,

tripped yesterday during testing, state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said.

The plant in New Taipei City’s Wanlin District (萬里) was expected to output at full capacity by the end of the week, but a safety mechanism governing the reactor’s steam valve that was set too sensitively triggered a shutdown yesterday afternoon, Taipower said.

The company said it would wait for approval from the Atomic Energy Council before restarting the reactor again.

The reactor had been shutdown since 2016 and underwent an overhaul late last year, with the company applying to the council on Feb. 5 to restart it after repairs were complete.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-27

President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday thanked visiting US congressman Ed Royce for

helping to pass the Taiwan Travel Act.

Royce was a co-author of the bill, which permits meetings at all levels between officials from Taiwan and the US. President Donald Trump signed the act into law on March 16.

Tsai awarded Royce the Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon when the congressman last visited Taiwan in September. The president on Tuesday thanked Royce on behalf of the Taiwanese people for his assistance in the development of Taiwan-US ties.    [FULL  STORY]

Xi Jinping may well plan to step aside as president in 2023, but he will maintain power behind the scenes anyway.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/28
By: By Mark Wenyi Lai, Taiwan Insight

While Premier William Lai (賴清德) and his cabinet ministers have been bogged down here in Taiwan by the toilet paper price hike “crisis” and resulting panic buying, their cross-Strait counterparts have been executing a grand political succession – or, more accurately, continuation. And the structural change to Beijing leadership that this involves may mean something quite different for Taiwan than most reports are suggesting.

It started on Feb. 25, when China’s state-run Xinhua news agency announced that the government was planning a constitutional amendment to abolish the presidential two-term limit. The reaction was predictably swift. Inside China, most news outlets toed the party line, with hurrahs for the extension of Xi’s “strong,” “stable,” and “superb” leadership beyond 2023. This support was echoed in the display of Xi’s slogans and portraits in the public sphere, stirring a sense of déjà vu of the Mao Zedong years. Outside China, a near-unanimous voice of criticism spoke out across newspapers globally, decrying what they described as the failure of the Chinese political system, the danger of a new Chinese emperor, and the frustration of Western leaders with an overconfident Xi.

“The purpose of the proposed constitutional amendment is to send a signal that he intends to maintain stability. Xi will surely remain in power after 2023, just not as president.”

Having researched and taught Chinese politics, particularly its succession mechanism, for more than a decade, I can’t help but wonder about some of the intriguing questions arising from this development.    [FULL  STORY]

 

Chiang still features on NT$200 banknote and NT$1, NT$5 and NT$10 coins

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/27
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The government has no plans to change banknotes or coins in

order to remove effigies of President Chiang Kai-shek, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said Tuesday.

New Central Bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said recently that if the new Transitional Justice Committee demands that all leftovers from the authoritarian era, including portraits of Chiang, are removed from the official currency, the bank will comply. At present, only the rarely seen NT$200 banknote and the NT$1, NT$5 and NT$10 coins still show the late president, who died in 1975.

Responding to questions from lawmakers Tuesday, Lai said neither his Cabinet nor the Central Bank had any plans to withdraw old currency and issue a new one with different images, the Central News Agency reported.

He added that it was impossible to anticipate what the Transitional Justice Committee, whose membership list might be announced Wednesday, would eventually decide.
[FULL  STORY]