Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/19
By: Tyson Lu and Frances Huang

Taipei, March 19 (CNA) Two Vietnamese drowned off eastern Taitung in the early hours of

Monday while attempting to illegally enter the country, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA).

Li Chih-hao (李智豪), a section chief in the CGA Eastern Coastal Patrol Office, said the two Vietnamese, one man and one woman, fell into the water when the rubber dinghy they were in capsized due to high waves as they approached the Taitung coast.

Li said the two died, despite being pulled from the water by a patrol boat and rushed to hospital.

Four other occupants of the dinghy, two Vietnamese women, a Vietnamese man and a Taiwanese man, were also thrown into the water, Li said, adding that they made it to land where they were arrested by coastguard officers.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 20, 2018
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

A coalition of human rights groups yesterday marched on the streets of Taipei to mark the

anniversary of China’s abduction of Taiwanese democracy advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) and to urge the Taiwanese government to pressure Beijing for Lee’s release.

Lee, who was arrested by Chinese authorities on March 19 last year when entering Zhuhai in Guangdong Province from Macau, was sentenced to five years in prison for state subversion in November last year. He is being incarcerated in Chishan Prison in China’s Hunan Province, but his wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜), is unable to make family visits.

Starting from the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, the activists marched with one of them blindfolded and hands shackled to symbolize Lee’s imprisonment, while they explained to passersby Lee’s situation and how he was incarcerated for exercising freedom of speech.    [FULL  STORY]

Born in a Japanese puppet state in 1935, the Taiwanese author and politician died on Sunday of brain cancer at the age of 82
Date: 18 March, 2018
By: Lawrence ChungSu Xinqi

A political campaigner who railed against the political norms of his time, he will be forever remembered as a controversial and colourful character. He lost his battle with brain cancer on Sunday morning at the Veterans General Hospital in Taipei.

Li was a long-time critic of Taiwan’s government who penned more than 100 books, many of them scathing of the critical of the island’s authorities. He once infuriated the late Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek by calling him a dictator, and referred to former presidents Lee Teng-hui as an “unfaithful political turncoat” and Chen Shui-bian as a “big deceiver”.

Li was diagnosed with brain a tumour in June 2015 and was admitted to hospital on four separate occasions as his condition worsened, his doctors said. He had been particularly ill since January but died peacefully, his son Li Kan said.    [FULL  STORY]

Beijing says bill violates ‘one China’ policy and asks US to stop pursuing official ties with Taipei

The Guardian
Date: 18 Mar 2018
By: Agence France-Presse

China has called on the US to “correct its mistake” after Donald Trump approved rules

allowing top-level US officials to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taipei counterparts.

US representatives can already travel to democratic Taiwan and Taiwanese officials occasionally visit the White House, but meetings are usually low profile to avoid offending China.

The Taiwan Travel Act, which the president signed on Friday following its passage through Congress, encourages visits between US and Taiwanese officials “at all levels”.

Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 in favour of Beijing under the “one China” policy. But it maintains trade relations with the island and sells it weapons, angering China.    [FULL  STORY]

Japanese dragon boat team makes generous donation to Hualien earthquake relief effort

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/18
By: Renée Salmonsen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — More than 800 athletes competed in the 2018 Hualien Pacific International Dragon Boat Race over the weekend.

Teams from 20 countries traveled to Taiwan to compete in Hualien’s second annual March dragon boat race.

A Japanese team donated US$2,200 to Hualien earthquake damage relief efforts on behalf of the Japan Dragon Boat Association, reported CNA.

A celebratory ceremony for the athletes will be held this afternoon and attended by Hualien County officials, including the Hualien County Magistrate, Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁).
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/18
By: Lin Chang-shun and Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, March 18 (CNA) Premier Lai Ching-te (賴清德) visited the coal-fired Linkou Power

Plant in New Taipei Sunday in an attempt to ease public concerns over possible air quality degradation stemming from the government’s decision to expand the Shen’ao coal-fired power plant, also in New Taipei.

“When coal-fired power generation is a necessity for Taiwan, the Linkou Power Plant, equipped with the most advanced generators and pollution control and abatement systems and burning the types of coal that have the fewest impurities is the model we look toward,” Lai told reporters before touring the plant.

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) gave a green light March 14 to a request by state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) to expand the Shen’ao plant by installing two additional coal-burning generators with 600,000 kilowatts of capacity each, provoking a public outcry.    [FULL  STORY]

TRAPPED? Taiwan depended on a powerful US, a weak China and a strong economy, but that is no longer possible, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 19, 2018
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan should not involve itself in the confrontation between the US and China, but

should create another path to interact with the two powers to ensure its security, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) told a forum in Taipei yesterday.

The US until this year approached its relationship with China as a constructive partnership, but the US Department of Defense in its annual defense strategy report published in January defined China as “a strategic competitor,” suggesting that the US-China partnership has turned confrontational, Hsu told the regional security forum organized by the Taiwan Research Foundation.

The confrontation would not come to a definite conclusion because neither the US nor China would escalate it to a military conflict, a trade war or Cold War-style diplomatic confrontation, Hsu said.

The US-China relationship would develop into a “protracted, on-and-off process of confrontation and compromise,” which would become the basis for a new world order, Hsu said.    [FULL  STORY]

The Star Online
Date: Saturday, 17 Mar 2018
By: lawrence chung

A Hong Kong teenager suspected of murdering his girlfriend while they were on holiday in Taipei may never face charges over the killing because the city has no extradition deal with Taiwan and does not recognise its jurisdiction, a legal expert said on Friday.

Despite previous collaboration between officials in both places – in intelligence-sharing and arresting suspects – problems arise once a case arrives at a Hong Kong court, he said.

Chan Tong-kai, 19, a former associate degree student at Polytechnic University’s Hong Kong Community College, is accused of killing 20-year-old Poon Hiu-wing, also from Hong Kong, the island’s police said.    [FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: March 17, 2018
By: Reuters Staff

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed its “resolute opposition” after U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation that encourages the United States to send senior officials to Taiwan to meet Taiwanese counterparts and vice versa.

A double rainbow is seen behind Taiwanese flag during the National Day celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
The bill, which is non-binding, would have gone into effect on Saturday morning, even if Trump had not signed it.

The move adds to strains between the two countries over trade, as Trump has enacted tariffs and called for China to reduce its huge trade imbalance with the United States, even while Washington has leaned on Beijing to help resolve tensions with North Korea.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-17

A 3% hike in electricity prices is set to take effect for Taiwan’s biggest power users

starting April 1.

The price hike is expected to have no impact on most power users, with fewer than 20% set to see higher bills. Many of those facing higher prices will be large industrial users of power.

Several large companies responded to the price hike after it was announced on Friday.

Leading wafer-maker TSMC says that power accounts for less than 10% of its production costs. The company says the price hike should have only a limited impact on its operations. Fellow wafer-maker UMC also says the impact will be small, but that the company will seek to make up for higher costs by working to increase efficiency.    [FULL  STORY]