War Is Boring
Date: August 17, 2020 
By: Staff Writer

Taiwan’s government on Monday said that it has amended regulations to prevent mainland Chinese citizens who are current residents of Hong Kong and Macau from moving to the self-ruled island to spy or engage in other illegal acts.

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s top government agency on policy dealings with Beijing, said in a statement that the Interior Ministry amended some regulations to prevent Chinese citizens who are residents of Hong Kong and Macau from moving to Taiwan to engage in “infiltration, united front propaganda, disturbance, even spying activities.”

In the future, in accordance with newly amended regulations, the Taiwan government will convene cross-agency reviews on the relocation applications filed by residents of Hong Kong or Macau originally from mainland China or who are current or former government or military officials, the council said in the statement.

The new measures aim to enhance security and protect national security, it said.
[FULL  STORY]

Teenager who returned to Taiwan to visit relatives tests positive for coronavirus

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/17
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

3TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Monday (Aug. 17) announced one new case of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) imported from the U.S.

During a special press conference on Monday, CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) announced there was one new imported coronavirus case, raising the total number of cases in Taiwan to 485. Case No. 485 is a male in his teens who lived in the U.S. for an extended period of time and returned to Taiwan on Aug. 5 to visit relatives.

Chuang said that the teen was not reporting any symptoms when he arrived in Taiwan on Aug. 5. However, for unexplained reasons, he underwent testing for COVID-19 on Aug. 15 and was confirmed to have the virus on Aug. 17.

He is currently in a hospital isolation ward undergoing treatment. As the case wore proper protective gear during the flight, has been asymptomatic, went straight to a quarantine center upon arriving in Taiwan, and did not come in contact with any relatives or friends in Taiwan, the CECC has not listed any persons as being at risk of contracting the disease.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/17/2020
By: Chen Wei-ting and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, Aug. 17 (CNA) A delegation of Czech officials scheduled to visit Taiwan in late August will have to test negative for COVID-19 before their flight, but they will be exempt from quarantine upon arrival, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Monday.

The delegation, which will be led by Miloš Vystrčil, the president of the Senate of the Czech Republic, will consist of some 90 business leaders, scientists and legislators. They will visit Taiwan from Aug. 30 to Sep. 4.

The COVID-19 control and prevention measures that will be taken for the trip will be based on those used earlier this month when representatives from the United States and Japan visited Taiwan, CECC spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said Monday.

The specifics, however, are still being worked out with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chuang said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 18, 2020
By: Su Meng-chuan and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Taiwan is to send plant seeds to outer space for the first time in October to observe how the space environment affects their genetic makeup, the National Space Organization (NSPO) said yesterday.

The Space Seeds for Asian Future program is being developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Nine nations, including Taiwan, are participating in the program this year, with 16 kinds of seeds expected to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS), where they would stay for about four months, the NSPO said.

Participating nations have primarily chosen the seeds of endemic plants or plants with symbolic meaning, it said, adding that some are crop seeds.

The NSPO collaborated with National Chung Hsing University’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, which is overseen by the Council of Agriculture, to choose which seeds to send, it said.    [FULL  STORY]

DefenceBlog.com
Date: Aug 16, 2020
By: Daisuke Sato

A U.S. Department of Defense announcement on Thursday said Pentagon’s No.1 weapons supplier Lockheed Martin Corp has been awarded a $62 billion, 10-year contract for the production of F-16s for Foreign Military Sale (FMS), and the initial delivery order is for 90 aircraft.

The DoD did not reveal the buyers of the fighter jets, but media outlets including Bloomberg and AFP reported on Friday that the deal includes Taiwan’s approved purchase of 66 F-16V fighters.

By announcing the F-16 deal has been finalized, the U.S. is attempting to show its tough stance, and the move could be considered as corresponding to the PLA drills, Ni Feng, director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Under these circumstances, the US move is even more dangerous, as it steps on and even crosses the Chinese mainland’s red line on the Taiwan question, Ni said, noting that the risk of a confrontation continues to rise.    [FULL  STORY]

The Standard
Date: 16 Aug 2020

The wife of a man who was diagnosed with the coronavirus in Malaysia Friday has tested negative for the virus, while four others who were in close contact in northern Taiwan will also be tested, the Central Epidemic Command Center said Sunday.

Malaysia's Ministry of Health confirmed 20 new patients  on Friday, one of which it classified as an imported case from Taiwan, CNA reports.

Following the announcement, a Malaysian health official told CNA that the patient is a 33-year-old Malaysian citizen of Chinese background, who had been working in Taiwan before his return to Malaysia earlier this month.    [FULL  STORY]

• The relationship between the two largely unrecognised states has given Taipei a foothold in the region despite Beijing’s attempts to freeze it out
• The two self-ruled democracies are largely unrecognised on the world stage, but can support each others’ international ambitionsHenc

South China Morning Post
Date: 16 Aug, 2020
By: Sarah Zheng and Kinling Lo

“Somaliland, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

The allusion to the closing scene of the Hollywood classic Casablanca, came in a tweet earlier this month from Taiwanese government spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka discussing the burgeoning relationship between the two largely unrecognised states.

In July the two governments announced that they had signed a treaty earlier in the year to establish representative offices in each others’ capitals.

The move marked a breakthrough for two self-governing democracies that are largely unrecognised by the rest of the world.

Taiwan now has just 15 official diplomatic allies as Beijing moves to choke off its diplomatic space, while Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991 in the middle of Somalia’s civil war, is not recognised by any country.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society organizes series of activities to commemorate end of war

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/15
By:  Central News Agency

A series of activities were held in Taiwan Saturday (Aug. 15) to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the sufferings of thousands of prisoners of war (POWs) of the Japanese in Taiwan during that bloody conflict.

The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society (TPCMS), dedicated to researching the history of former POW camps in Taiwan during WWII and the stories of their surviving inmates, hosted the 13th Far East Prisoner of War Day event in the Taipei Spot Theatre. More than 60 Taiwanese and people from the foreign community attended the event.

The half-day program included a presentation on allied forces' air raids against Taiwan between 1943 and 1945 by Taiwanese military aviation historian Chang Wei-bin (張維斌), and another presentation on stories of the POWs in Taiwan by Michael Hurst, the TPCMS director. That evening, a memorial service was held for those POWs who perished in the camps, followed by a screening of the American war movie "Empire of the Sun," which tells the story of an American boy living in Shanghai who becomes separated from his parents and ends up in a Japanese POW camp.

On Aug. 15, 1945, Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan. The formal surrender document was signed on Sept. 2 of that year. "I am thinking that this could be one of the few actual live gatherings on the 15th of August anywhere in the free world, so we're pretty proud of that," Hurst told CNA, attributing it to the Taiwanese government's good handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the cooperation of the Taiwanese people.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/16/2020
By: Huang Li-yun and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, Aug. 16 (CNA) A suspected data breach at the online bookstore TAAZE has caused 230 of its customers to be scammed for an estimated total of NT$22 million (US$738,540), the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said Sunday.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 9, the 230 people reported to the 165 anti-fraud hotline that they had been scammed after placing an order on TAAZE, the CIB said, adding that 45 of the cases — nearly 20 percent of the total — were reported last week alone.

One TAAZE customer who fell victim to the scam is a 35-year-old teacher from New Taipei surnamed Hsu (許), the CIB said.

After buying NT$930-worth of books, Hsu received a call from a scammer who claimed to be a customer service employee at the online bookstore, the CIB said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/15/2020
By: Liu Kuan-ting, Yeh Su-ping,
Christie Chen and Frances Huang

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) on Saturday vowed to bring his party back to power in Kaohsiung in 2022, following a crushing defeat for the KMT in the mayoral by-election in the southern city that day.

"Today's election results should not be seen as a rejection by Kaohsiung citizens of the KMT, but as them urging us to work harder," Chiang said at a press conference in which KMT's mayoral candidate, Li Mei-jhen (李眉蓁), conceded defeat to Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

He said the KMT should stand firm in its reforms and learn from its mistakes.

"We will take action to win back the support of Kaohsiung's citizens and win back Kaohsiung in (the) 2022 (local government elections)," he said.    [FULL  STORY]