National Review
Date: January 23, 2020
By: Daniel Tenreiro

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a signing ceremony following the Russian-Chinese talks on

the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, September 11, 2018. (Alexander Ryumin/Reuters)

How the island of 23 million stands in the way of a new Chinese empire

The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.
 — Luo Guanzhong,
Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The opening line of that 14th-century epic has influenced generations of Chinese leaders. The country’s mythological founder, the Yellow Emperor, is said to have ended an era of chaos by subduing warring tribes and centralizing rule in the Middle Kingdom. Ever since, princes and party secretaries alike have emulated the archetypal messianic unifier. Consolidating the various ethnicities, languages, and religions around the Yellow River into a single polity has been one of the central challenges of China’s long history. 

Mao Zedong, who inaugurated the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, is believed to have read Romance of the Three Kingdoms obsessively as a boy. Upon taking the helm, Mao followed Luo’s exhortation and prioritized the reoccupation of the empire’s peripheral regions, including Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. After the 1911 revolution that unseated the Qing Dynasty, the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols resisted Chinese rule with varying degrees of success. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) viewed the loss of these regions as an extension of China’s humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, and despite the occasional upheaval, China has since maintained control over those peoples.

In recent months, though, that control has faced heightened resistance. The mass detention of Muslim Uyghurs has drawn condemnation from the international community, while pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have undermined Beijing’s rule in the semiautonomous region. But as a major territorial claim the PRC has yet to annex, democratic Taiwan may represent the greatest extant challenge to the Chinese empire.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/01/23
By:  Associated Press

Shortly before authorities closed off the Chinese city at the epicenter of an outbreak of a new virus,

the World Health Organization sent a team led by country representative Gauden Galea to check conditions on the ground in Wuhan, an inland city of more than 11 million people.

The five-member team on Monday and Tuesday visited a local biosafety lab, a branch of China's Center for Disease Control, a hospital retrofitted with increased safety protocols and the airport. Galea spoke with health care workers, epidemiology inspectors and city officials who described and demonstrated how authorities are tracking, treating and combating the disease.

The Associated Press interviewed Galea at the WHO office in Beijing on Thursday (Jan. 23).
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/23/2020
By: Chiang Yi-ching and Chang Hsiung-feng

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Hsu Ren-han (許荏涵), the first woman in Taiwan to be a "Certified Tree Worker Climber Specialist" will host a female-only tree climbing camp in Taiwan this year.

Hsu, who obtained her certification from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) in 2017, told CNA that she hopes the camp, which is set to be held in March, will inspire more women to join her unique, albeit rather obscure, profession.

Born in 1994, Hsu majored in Chinese education at Taipei-based Ming Chuan University when she climbed trees for the first time at a scout event.

Though the experience of climbing up the tree using ropes and a harness left her dizzy and with blisters on her hands, Hsu fell in love with the challenge, and decided to pursue arboriculture as a profession.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 22 January, 2020
By: John Van Trieste

On Friday, people across Taiwan will celebrate Lunar New Year’s Eve, the biggest holiday of the year. But while some will spend the evening relaxing and feasting, others will be kicking off the New Year with a shot or two of adrenaline.

Tradition holds that good fortune awaits those who offer the year’s first stick of incense at a temple. That’s why, at the stroke of midnight on the first day of each lunar year, some Taiwanese temples are crammed full of people. They want that good fortune, and they are willing to race for it. This is the reason for a special and rather dangerous New Year’s custom: the annual incense dash.

At certain well-known temples, contestants line up, ready to run with a lit stick of incense and do whatever it takes to reach the main incense burner first. At exactly midnight, the temples fling open their doors, and the race is on.    [FULL  STORY]

Catholic Herald
Date:  22 January, 2020
By: Courtney Mares/CNA

Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has written to Pope Francis describing China’s aggression and persecution of religion as “obstacles to peace,” and detailing the Communist regime’s “abuses of power.”

“The crux of the issue is that China refuses to relinquish its desire to dominate Taiwan. It continues to undermine Taiwan’s democracy, freedom, and human rights with threats of military force and the implementation of disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and diplomatic maneuvers,” Tsai wrote in a letter to the Pope published by her office on January 21.

Tsai sent the letter in response to Pope Francis’ message for the 2020 World Day of Peace, the Pope’s annual letter sent to all foreign ministers around the world to mark the new year.

This year, the Pope’s letter entitled: “Peace as a Journey of Hope: Dialogue, Reconciliation and Ecological Conversion,” called on “the conscience of humanity” to rise up in the face of “every desire for dominance and destruction.”    [FULL  STORY]

Former AIT head says 'We don't stand for principle' if US fails to defend Taiwan from China attack

Taiwan News
Date: .2020/01/21
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer\

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In an interview with China Uncensored, Former Director of the American

Institute in Taiwan (AIT) William A. Stanton said that the U.S. would be turning its back on its core principles if it failed to come to the aid of Taiwan if Communist China attacks, that full diplomatic recognition would be a "very risky confrontation," and that the country is a "modern miracle."

During the interview, which was published on YouTube Monday (Jan. 20), host Chris Chappell asked what the U.S. should do if Communist China took military action against Taiwan. Stanton responded by saying, "We could no longer be the United States if we didn't step in and defend Taiwan."

He said that if the U.S. has fought wars for less noble causes such as non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it surely could enter a war for a fellow democracy such as Taiwan. However, if the U.S. failed to intervene, it would show the world that "We don't stand for principle. We just look after our own interests."

Stanton said that Taiwan is geostrategically important. He stated that one of the reasons the communist country wants it is to build bases and extend its reach into the Western Pacific.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/22/2020
By: Gary Richard Cowan

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) The Australian representative office in Taipei said Tuesday that its government's disclosure of a case involving a self-confessed spy from China, who was seeking asylum in Canberra late last year, was not aimed at influencing Taiwan's general elections, as has been alleged.

In an exclusive interview with CNA Tuesday, Gary Richard Cowan, head of the Australian Office Taipei, said there was no truth to the allegations that the Australia government or people were seeking to influence Taiwan's election.

"There is no circumstance under which Australia would seek to interfere in an election in Taiwan," Cowan said, adding that only the Taiwanese people have the right to choose their leader and decide who should represent them.

The case of the self-confessed Chinese spy Wang Liqiang (王立強) was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and other Australian media outlets last November, during the campaign leading up to Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 21 January, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

Taiwan is getting ready to welcome in the Year of the Rat, and local government offices are contributing to the festivities by offering free paper rat lanterns to children.

The fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year is the Lantern Festival. To mark the occasion, the Keelung City Government is giving away rat lanterns that feature a festive flower pattern. People can go to Keelung Tourism Service Centers from February 6 to February 8 to get a free lantern. The city will give away a total of 600 lanterns – first come, first served!    [FULL  STORY]