Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/12/26
By: Sophia Yeh, Tai Ya-chen and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Dec. 26 (CNA) The Presidential Office on Monday expressed deep regret and discontent after

China and Sao Tome and Principe announced their resumption of diplomatic relations earlier that day, saying that “diplomacy is not a zero-sum game.”

China and Sao Tome and Principe signed a communiqué to resume diplomatic relations in Beijing earlier that day.

Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said that “diplomacy is not a zero-sum game,” noting that participation in the international community by both sides of the Taiwan Strait has positive significance and the two sides need not clash with each other.

“Any move to restrain or interfere with Taiwan’s participation in the international community will be a loss to the international community, and will also not be beneficial to the healthy development of cross-strait relations,” Huang said.    [FULL  STORY]

‘TAIWAN’ LANGUAGE:DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu’s proposal to have government agencies use ‘Taiwan’ as often as possible passed after it was backed by Freddy Lim

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 27, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) yesterday dismissed speculation that the Vatican planned

to establish diplomatic ties with China as “reheated leftovers,” saying that the government remains confident in Taipei’s diplomatic relationship with the city-state, despite challenges.

“Regarding Radio France Internationale’s report yesterday [Sunday], the article is actually based on ‘reheated leftovers.’ Allow me to use four words to describe it: Run of the mill,” Lee said on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday.

Lee said more focus should be placed on the five-day Ninth Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, which started yesterday in Beijing.

“The new leadership lineup to be announced after the conclusion of the assembly will provide us with more insights,” he said.

The assembly is deemed to be the most authoritative meeting of China’s state-owned church.

According to local news media, the gathering is to bring together bishops recognized and not recognized by the Vatican, as well as those who are considered illegitimate.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 27, 2016
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — In a major step toward making Taiwan the first Asian country to legalize same-sex

marriage, an amendment to the Civil Code was approved by a legislative committee on Monday.

After three hours of deliberation, the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee approved an adjusted version of an amendment proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女).

The committee jettisoned the most disputed clause of the proposed amendment, which would have replaced “male and female parties” in the Civil Code’s marriage chapter with “two parties.”

In its place, the committee compromised by adding sentence to the original clause stipulating that “an agreement to marry shall be made by the male and female parties in their own cord; An agreement to marry in a same-sex marriage, shall be made by the two parties in their own cord.”

The committee also approved a clause guaranteeing an equal application of spousal and parental rights to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2016-12-25

Protesters on Sunday disrupted a public hearing in New Taipei City on whether to lift the ban on food

imports from radiation-affected prefectures in Japan.

The opposition Kuomintang (KMT), which supports the continued ban, surrounded the venue of Sunday’s public hearing, getting into scuffles with police who were trying to prevent them from entering the venue.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 9:30am, however protesters called out slogans, demanded more people be allowed inside the venue, and effectively prevented the hearing from taking place. Questions were raised about why the government had not announced details about the public hearing two weeks in advance in accordance with the law.

KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-pin said that it appeared that the public hearing was not trying to gauge public opinion, but rather to convince the opposition of its position. He said that made the hearing pointless. Hau’s comments were interrupted by protesters calling for him to “shut up”, and by others questioning why the KMT opposed the import of foods from Japan due to radiation concerns, yet at the same time supported the building of a fourth nuclear power plant in Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

A day after Nazi cosplay incident in Hsinchu, two males are seen in Taipei MRT dressed as Waffen-SS and Hitler Youth

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/25
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Christmas Eve, a day after photos circulated online of at least a dozen

students wearing black uniforms with swastika armbands and holding Nazi flags and symbols at a high school in Hsinchu City, two Taiwanese men were photographed wearing Nazi uniforms at a Taipei MRT station.

A Follower on the Facebook group Another Side of Taiwan (台灣風情萬種) posted a photo of two males wearing what appeared to be Nazi uniforms. The two were photographed around noon at Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station Taipei yesterday. The poster of the image, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that he took the photo as a man and a young boy walked past him “dressed as Nazis.”

The adult male appears to be wearing a costume resembling a Nazi Waffen-SS, while the young boy appears to be wearing a replica of a Hitler Youth uniform. The Waffen-SS, was Hitler’s most notorious military unit and was later declared a criminal organization and was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials for numerous documented atrocities they committed against civilians and soldiers throughout WWII.

Earlier today, the teacher of the students that sparked outrage by dressing as Nazis at a campus cosplay event in Hsinchu expressed remorse over the incident on Saturday, and said he hopes the public will give his students another chance.    [FULL  STORY]

‘Indeed, dashing, brave and a natural leader of men, Sun was an immediate favorite with the British and the Americans, and one of the few Chinese commanders that the Allies saw as tactically adept. It was for these reasons that MacArthur, Rusk et al promoted Sun as the only way of staving off disaster in Taiwan.’

The News Lens
Date: 2016/12/23
By: James Baron

Dean Rusk read the secret missive with surprise, then burned it. The Assistant Secretary of State for

Far Eastern Affairs felt certain the content of the note would get its author killed if discovered. It was early June 1950, and the Korean War in which Rusk was to play a crucial role, was just weeks away. He had a lot on his plate, to be sure, but nothing quite like this: An offer from Chinese Nationalist General Sun Li-jen (孫立人) to stage a coup on Taiwan against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正).

A little over 15 months earlier, Sun had rejected a similar proposal from MacArthur during a meeting in Japan, declaring his loyalty to the Generalissimo. Sun even reported MacArthur’s audacity to then Republic of China Governor Ch’en Ch’eng (陳誠) who relayed the details to Chiang. What, wondered Rusk as he disposed of the evidence, had changed Sun’s mind in the interim.

The answer, it appears, was the same thing that made most of the American military and foreign policy top brass desirous of a decapitation strategy: a complete lack of faith in Chiang’s ability to prevent a Communist invasion of Taiwan, and a distrust of the political commissar system, which made promotion contingent on loyalty and fealty to ideology, rather than ability and recommendations by superior officers.    [FULL  STORY]