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8 Taiwan local government leaders visit Beijing (update 2)

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/18
By: Lawrence Chiu, Liu Kuan-ting, and S.C. Chang

Beijing, Sept. 18 (CNA) Eight city and county government leaders of Taiwan held a “breakthrough”

Lienchiang County Magistrate Liu (left) shakes hands with China’s Yu Zhengsheng.

meeting with Beijing officials Sunday, urging China to seek ways to “reset and restart” cross-strait ties.

Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌), magistrate of Miaoli County, said his delegation was calling for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to choose a “broad avenue” on which economic, tourism, cultural and agricultural cooperation between Taiwan and China can be continued as they need to face international competition in these areas.

He said if cross-strait ties continued to be deadlocked, it will hurt both the government and the people. “Our visit to Beijing is a breakthrough since the new government was launched in May,” he added.

Hsu, of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), made his appeal to Zhang Zhijun, China’s Taiwan Affairs minister, who reiterated that the “one China” principle embodied in its “1992 consensus” with Taiwan is the political foundation on which cross-strait exchanges will be conducted. [FULL STORY]

China dialogue proviso ‘not productive’

PROPAGANDA:By hosting Taiwanese officials, Beijing runs the risk of admitting that Chinese tourists to Taiwan are a tool of united front political warfare, a professor said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 19, 2016
By: Chung Li-hua, Lin Liang-sheng and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Setting preconditions for cross-strait exchanges are not conducive to “meaningful dialogue,”

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) county commissioners and deputy county commissioners, center row, attend a meeting yesterday with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun in Beijing. Photo: CNA

Presidential Office spokesperson Alex Huang (黃重諺) said yesterday.

“Preconditions are not necessary for meaningful dialogue; only those [without preconditions] can facilitate genuine understanding between the two sides. Maintaining peace and stability across the Strait is the responsibility of both sides, and the Presidential Office believes that any initiative that improves mutual understanding is a worthy and positive effort,” Huang said.

Huang’s remark was in response to comments made yesterday by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), who said that as long as the political foundation of the so-called “1992 consensus” remains solid, cross-strait exchanges can still be pushed forward.

The “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a supposed understanding reached during cross-strait talks in 1992 that both Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means. [FULL STORY]

Recovery continues in twin typhoon aftermath

The China Post
Date: September 19, 2016
By: Stephanie Chao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Premier Lin Chuan expressed his dissatisfaction at state owned utility companies’

Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) President Chu Wen-chen (朱文成), left, speaks to a Taipower employee in Kinmen County in this photo provided by the company on Sunday, Sept. 18. Chu …

inability to fully restore access days after Typhoon Meranti swept through Southern Taiwan.

As of Sunday, large numbers of households in areas such as Pingtung County were still without access to water or power.

“There are still around 10,000 households in Pingtung County without electricity,” Lin said.

While power is expected to return to most households by Sunday night, Lin said several townships still required a temporary electrical line to provide power.

During inspections of the nationwide disaster effort at the Central Disaster Emergency Center in New Taipei City, Lin expressed his fury at the slow progress made by Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) and Taiwan Water Corporation (TWC.)

“There will be a review regarding post-disaster restoration efforts and coordination,” Lin said, adding that he would demand answers from senior executives at Taipower and TWC.

While current disaster relief efforts have reduced the number of households left without power, Lin said more work remains to be done. [FULL STORY]

What’s next after Newater

Asia One
Date: Sep 18, 2016
By: Han Fook Kwang, The Straits Times

Newater is produced by using a membrane to separate water from sewage. Singapore aims to become

Photo: The Straits Times

a world leader in membrane and water research. There are more than 180 local and international water companies and 26 research institutions here.

When I first heard how Newater was produced years ago, it blew my mind.

The idea seemed simple enough: Use a membrane to separate the water from all that other horrid, smelly stuff.
But how do you make a sieve that’s so precise and dependable you could drink the water that had just been separated from sewage?

Welcome to the incredible world of membrane technology.

It works because the filter does the job at the molecular level, separating actual particles of water from the rest. [FULL STORY]

Eight celebrated Taiwanese documentaries featured in Brisbane

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-18
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Eight celebrated documentaries from Taiwan are scheduled to be played in the 2016 Taiwan Documentary Film Festival in Brisbane, Australia on September 17-18, 2016.
The eight documentaries depict Taiwan from different angles, with four of them focusing on stories in modern Taiwan and the other four featuring stories in Taiwan’s colonial and post-colonial history.

Taiwan’s first aerial documentary, “Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above” in 2013 won the Best Documentary Award at the Golden Horse Film Festival. The documentary records Taiwan’s beauty and hidden troubles from an angle that had been taken before. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is about how a group of Taiwanese people faces the aftermath of a natural disaster. “Trapped at sea, lost in time” records the life story on an ocean fishing boat. “Love Songs of Teldreka” shows the contemporary life of a tribe in Taiwan.

“The Rocking Sky” tells the story of Chinese pilots in World War Two; “Shonenko” describes the life of a large number of Taiwan children recruited to make military aircraft in Japan in the final years of World War Two; “Wangsei Back Home” tells the story of Japanese people who were born and raised in Taiwan and deported to Japan after World War Two and captures their strong feeling for Taiwan; and “Su Beng, the Revolutionist” walks its audience through the life of Taiwan’s independence movement pioneer Su Bing, who still insists on advocating Taiwan independence despite of his old age of 98. [SOURCE]

Overseas Taiwanese rally for Taiwan’s membership in U.N.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/18
By: Timothy Huang and Evelyn Kao

New York, Sept. 17 (CNA) Around 500 overseas Taiwanese in the United States and a Taiwanese delegation took to the streets Saturday calling for Taiwan’s membership in the United Nations ahead of the 71st session of the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 20-26.

It was the 24th such action by Taiwanese civic organizations in the U.S. since former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) launched a campaign in 1992 for Taiwan (ROC) to rejoin the United Nations.

This year, the rally was led by the Committee for Admission of Taiwan to the United Nations (CATUN) and the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York, ahead of the opening of the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Tuesday.

The rally attracted the highest number of participants in recent years, including many second-generation Taiwanese Americans. [FULL STORY]

Meranti causes crop loss of NT$800 mil.

The China Post
Date: September 18, 2016
By: The China Post news staff

Agricultural loss caused by Typhoon Meranti on Taiwan have been estimated at nearly NT$800 million,

DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei examines a tree felled by strong winds during Typhoon Meranti at a Tainan fruit farm, Saturday, Sept. 17, in this photo provided by the lawmaker’s office. Chen and another DPP legislator, Wang Ting-yu, urged the government to quickly extend help to farmers who suffered losses in the typhoon. (CNA)

a report said Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Air Force apologized for failing to provide meals to its servicemen dispatched to a village in the mountains of Hualien to help with prevention work against typhoon-triggered disasters last week.

Meranti, which ravaged Southern Taiwan on Tuesday, damaged over NT$460 million worth of crops in Kaohsiung alone, the United Evening News reported, citing the city’s Agriculture Bureau.

The city’s guava farms sustained heavy damage, with losses estimated at more than NT$200 million, the bureau said, adding that jujube farms were hit with losses estimated at over NT$90 million.

n Pingtung, aquaculture farms were also hit hard by Meranti. In some cases, power outages caused failures to life-support systems for grouper ponds, resulting in losses of more than NT$14 million from fish deaths, according to Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Haung Hung-yan. [FULL STORY]

New Taiwanese-backed think tank launched in Washington

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-17
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Global Taiwan Institute (GTI), a new research institute or think tank based in the United States that

The Global Taiwan Institute Chairman Robert Lai (second from left), Taiwan’s Representative to the US Stanley Kao (center), and U.S. Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (second from right) attended the opening ceremony.

focuses on Taiwan affairs and is designed to promote bilateral relations between the U.S. and Taiwan, has recently been established in Washington.
The GTI was launched with funding from Taiwanese Americans and was missioned to publish a weekly journal, provide in-depth analysis on multilateral relations between Taiwan, U.S. and China, and host annual conferences or gatherings of scholars and officials. The institute has reportedly raised an initial fund of US$20 million.

The opening ceremony was held on the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival near Dupont Circle in Washington and was attended by high-profile think tank scholars, U.S. Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Taiwanese legislator Freddy Lim of the New Power Party, among other officials and U.S. Senators and Representatives.

Chairman Robert Lai, who is an expert in military strategy and has been active in the Taiwanese-American community, said the institute is dedicated to bolstering Taiwan-US relations, supporting talented young Taiwanese-Americans, and making young Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans be proud of Taiwan. [FULL STORY]

NATO experts take part in Taipei security meeting for first time

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/17
By: Tang Pei-chun and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Sept. 17 (CNA) An ultra low-profile national security conference was held recently in Taipei with

Photo from IGSDA Website

more than 10 international experts in the fields of global, international and national security participating, including experts from NATO making their first visit to Taiwan.

A few think tanks and government agencies were also notified before the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 15 this year, that a group of guests were to visit them, but the visits were to be kept a secret and the meetings held in closed-door form.

Such an arrangement has aroused curiosity about the identity of the visiting guests.

The mystery was solved after the Institute for Global Security and Defense Affairs (IGSDA), an online think tank, recently published on its website to confirm that the National Security Conference in Taiwan: Global and Regional Security Challenges and Threat to NATO & Asia was held in Taipei Sept. 12-13. [FULL STORY]

Disruption left in typhoon’s wake

DELAYS:Taoyuan Airport said that 12,800 passengers were affected by delays due to the typhoon, which only accounts for about 11.9% of the total daily airport traffic

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 18, 2016
By: Staff Writer, with CNA

Taiwan proper and the nation’s outlying islands are expected to be out of the storm circle of Typhoon

A beach in Kinmen County is polluted by an oil spill yesterday from a Chinese cargo ship that was stranded on the beach when Typhoon Meranti hit the region. Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times

Malakas by 4am and 11am respectively today, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.

Land and sea warnings for Malakas are expected to be lifted this morning, the bureau said.

At 8pm yesterday, Malakas was centered about 150km east-northeast of Taipei, moving at 5kph north-northeast, data from the bureau showed.

It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph, with gusts reaching 198kph, the bureau said.

There had been no reports of injury as of press time last night.

A total of 2,788 people in New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Yilan and Hualien counties were evacuated as a precautionary measure, the Central Emergency Operation Center said.

The bureau maintained torrential rain alerts for mountain areas in New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties. [FULL STORY]

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