Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/11/2020
By  Sunrise Huang, Liu Chien-pang and Ko Lin

Taipei, July 11 (CNA) The New Taipei government has ordered a construction site in Yunghe District to be shut down after it allegedly caused a nearby street to collapse and forced residents in the area to be evacuated.

A total of 158 people were forced to leave their homes because the collapse caused structural damage to some of the surrounding apartment buildings.

The collapse took place at 10:39 a.m. in an alleyway on Wenhua Road near an apartment building construction site where work was being done on the project's foundation.

The incident, which affected 66 nearby homes, also caused the rupture of an underground gas pipe and the tilting of several buildings in the vicinity.    [FULL  STORY]

CAUTION: Taiwanese should be alert, even if they have just liked or shared posts that would breach Beijing’s national security legislation for Hong Kong, the council said

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 12, 2020
By: Chung-Li-hua and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Due to the newly implemented Hong Kong national security legislation, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has drawn up a list of what it described as “high-risk groups,” cautioning them not to travel to Hong Kong.

People who support independence for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang; those who are critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Hong Kong government and the “one country, two systems” concept; and those who donated to or voiced support for the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill movement are urged to refrain from visiting Hong Kong, the council said on its Web site.

It released two posts on the matter, one on Friday and the other yesterday.

The National Security Law was passed by the Chinese National People’s Congress last month and took effect on June 30, defining and prohibiting acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 10 July, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

The US government on Thursday approved Taiwan’s request to recertify the island’s Patriot missile systems. The package includes the sale of spare parts and thorough testing of Taiwan’s Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) missiles. The program aims to extend the weapons’ service life. 

Taiwan’s government thanked the US on Friday morning for its assistance. The Presidential Office says that the US is upholding its commitment to Taiwan by elevating its defense capabilities. It also says that by recertifying the missiles, the US is showing dedication to maintaining regional peace and stability.     [FULL  STORY]

Wilson Center
Date: July 10, 2020
By Lucy Hale

As Latin America becomes the global epicenter for COVID-19, countries in the region are leveraging their international relationships to secure vital medical aid. This has provided an opportunity for global powers vying for influence in the region, including the United States and China, which are donating and selling critical supplies. Smaller countries have also deployed “mask diplomacy” to extend their influence in the region.

This includes Taiwan, whose success containing COVID-19 has boosted its global standing, including in Latin America, where it has been losing ground to its powerful neighbor in recent years.

For Taiwan, Latin America has long been an important source of diplomatic support. Its regional allies give Taiwan a voice in international institutions, and offer an excuse for Taiwanese officials to stop by the United States en route to Latin America. For this reason, “it’s of strategic importance” that Taiwan’s Latin American allies “remain in its bosom,” the Wilson Center’s Shihoko Goto said on “Two the Point.”

Lately, however, lawmakers in several countries that recognize Taiwan are voicing concerns that they are foregoing significant aid from China. This debate recently played out in the legislature of a longtime Taiwanese ally, Paraguay.    [FULL  STORY]

Viral disease allegedly imported from China's Fujian, 23 cattle culled

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/10
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan has confirmed the first Lumpy skin disease (LSD) cases in cattle on its outlying islands of Kinmen, and the authorities suspected the disease may have been imported from China.

A total of 23 out of 549 cattle at a government-operated farm in Kinmen were found to have contracted the infectious disease, the Kinmen County Animal and Plant Disease Control Center reported Wednesday (July 8). The ill animals have been culled and more culling is expected for better containment.

Genome sequencing suggests the virus that caused the illness has a 99 percent similarity with the one that led to an outbreak in China last year. There is reason to believe the virus may have been transmitted via mosquitoes or flies from Fujian, a province on the southeastern coast of China where the virus reportedly emerged in June, according to Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城), deputy minister of the Council of Agriculture.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/10/2020
By: Hsiao Po-wen and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, July 10 (CNA) Prosecutors have filed aggravated larceny charges against three Colombian men for allegedly robbing NT$6 million (US$203,361) from a home in Taipei, saying the charges will act as a deterrent against other potential foreign criminals coming to Taiwan.

The charges the suspects were indicted on carry prison sentences of between 6 months and five years and fines of up NT$500,000 under Article 321 of Taiwan's Criminal Code.

According to the indictment filed by the Shilin District Prosecutors Office on July 7, the men, surnamed Montenegro Molina, Quintero Montenegro and Suarez Pineros, came to Taiwan individually in March on the pretext of visiting family members or for tourism purposes.

They later received automatic visa extensions due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[FULL  STORY]

IN THE PIPELINE: The Ministry of National Defense said the sale, expected to take effect in one month, would be the seventh arms sale under the Trump administration

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 11, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

The government yesterday thanked the US for approving the possible sale of a US$620 million missile repair and recertification package to Taiwan.

The US Department of State has approved the sale of a package to recertify Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington for an estimated US$620 million, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release on Thursday.

The agency has delivered the required certification to the US Congress, notifying it of the possible sale, it added.

The TECRO had requested to buy an upgrade package that would support an operational life of 30 years for its PAC-3 missiles, including air transportation services for missile processing, ground support equipment, and US government and contractor technical and logistical support, it said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 09 July, 2020
By: Paula Chao

[Volcanoes, a pizza flavored boba, cell phone zombies?][/caption] The starting point for today’s Taiwan Insider is a crowd-sourced grid of apocalyptic events, compiled from viewer suggestions. We’ll be touching on THREE of those news items: including a new volcano warning system, and how Hong Kong’s national security law is threatening Taiwan. 

 

[SOURCE]

 

The government sympathises with their cause, but is wary of taking too many in

The Economist
Date: Jul 11th 2020

Lam wing-kee runs a tiny bookshop on the tenth floor of an unremarkable building in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. He is also the country’s most famous exile from Hong Kong. His shop is a replica of his former business in Hong Kong, Causeway Bay Books, which until 2015 sold material the Chinese government considered subversive. That year Mr Lam was kidnapped by Chinese agents and held without charge for eight months. He fled to Taiwan early last year, fearing that an extradition bill under consideration by Hong Kong’s legislature might see him sent back to the mainland—legally this time.

Now Mr Lam sleeps in a bed in the shop. Above a pile of books criticising the Chinese Communist Party hangs a banner calling for Hong Kong’s liberation from China. But when asked if Taiwan will be a haven for democracy activists from Hong Kong, he hums and haws. He himself wants to stay in a Chinese-speaking country, since he sells Chinese books. Others, he says, may prefer to flee to Western countries, farther from the long arm of the Chinese authorities. The Taiwanese government has treated him well, he adds. “They want to help Hong Kong but it is natural for them to be cautious,” he says.

Like most of her compatriots, Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, is proud of her country’s democracy and sympathetic to Hong Kong’s activists. The day before China imposed a ferocious security law on Hong Kong last month, her government amended its covid-related border closure to make it easier for people from Hong Kong to enter. The day after the law took effect, it opened an office in the city to help locals visit or emigrate to Taiwan.

But Ms Tsai is indeed cautious: her government has not issued any sweeping offer of asylum. Instead, requests to resettle are considered case by case, and residency is often granted for mundane reasons, at least on paper. Mr Lam, for instance, is classified as an investor, since he set up a business in Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/08
By:  William A. Stanton, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

This is the second part of a two-part commentary. The first part can be found here.

The most robust indication of American support for Taiwan has perhaps come in the form of the strongest U.S. government statements we have ever seen critical of the PRC and supportive of Taiwan. A rhetorical turning point was the introduction to the unclassified version of the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy of 2018.

It was the first new U.S. national defense strategy in 10 years, and it was the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that the government had said in an official public document that its preoccupation with terrorism was over and that the greatest challenge was now the PRC:

“Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security. China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea….It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model….”

[FULL  SORY]