Sourth China Morning Post
Date: 1 Aug, 2019
By: Lawrence Chung  

• Island’s leader says move to curb tourism will only cause resentment
• Mainland said move was in response to Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party pushing for independence and stirring up division

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has described mainland China’s ban on individual visits to the island as “a big mistake strategically” as her government announced that it would relax its rules on mainlanders visiting family members.

The mainland’s culture and tourism ministry said that starting on Thursday, it would stop issuing individual travel permits to Taiwan for people in 47 mainland cities because of the poor state of relations with the self-ruled island.

Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said the decision had been made because Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party has pushed for independence and stirred up division between Taipei and Beijing.

“This has seriously damaged the foundation for letting mainland citizens travel to Taiwan as individual tourists,” Ma said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan tells China to 'back off' after PLA posts video of PLA troops crushing Hong Kong protests

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/02
By:  Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After video surfaced on Wednesday showing People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers using force to crush protests by Hong Kong citizens, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) posted a tweet telling China to "back off" of Hong Kong.

On Wednesday, the Hong Kong Garrison of the PLA released a video showing soldiers with heavy weaponry blasting targets to smithereens and troops in riot gear rounding up civilians like prisoners of war. Ominously, a PLA soldier can be heard shouting into a loudspeaker in Cantonese that "All consequences are at your own risk."

The video is a not-so-subtle hint that China is seriously considering sending in armed troops to crush the ongoing anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong. On July 24, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian described the protestors' challenge to China's sovereignty over Hong Kong as "intolerable" and said that the PLA garrison could mobilize to restore pubic order if requested by the special administrative region's government.3

An editorial published in the Financial Times on July 31 wrote that deploying the PLA to Hong Kong to put down protests would be a "massive error." That same day, news broke that China was massing troops on the border with Hong Kong and the White House responded that it was monitoring the situation.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 31 July, 2019
By: Jake Chen

Parents say new child care subsidy not enough. (CNA Photo)[/caption]Parents say new child care subsidy not enough. (CNA Photo)[/caption] Many parents are saying that a new government child care subsidy is far from enough to cover the costs of raising children.

Families can get NT$2500 (US$80) per month for the first two children aged between two and four. A third child will bring an additional for NT$3500 (US$112) per month. 

However, many parents say the new subsidy is far from enough to cover their childcare expenses. One mother has also highlighted the fact that raising children gets considerably more costly after they reach the age of five, which is the cut-off age for the new subsidy.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Insight
Date: 31 July 2019
By: Tanguy Lepesant

During the 2016 election campaign, Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) emphasised “generational justice” in order to both criticise Ma Ying-jeou’s economic policies and attract youth votes. The DPP highlighted stagnant low wages, poor working conditions, and pressure from free trade agreements with China on Taiwan’s democratic system. These campaigns resonated with youths already participating in large scale social movements such as the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement. Studies show that Taiwanese youths believe their quality of life as adults will be worse than their parents‘ and that they are victims of “generational injustice”. They believe they have been deprived of their “right to a good quality of life” by their elders whom benefited from Taiwan’s economic miracle and accumulated wealth at the expense of environmental protection. They believe these elders have unjustly monopolise power over all decision-making processes through a strictly age-based vertical hierarchy.

Taiwanese under 40 constitute roughly one third of the entire electorate and are mostly swing voters. They will again be a key factor in the 11 January 2020 presidential election. Youth voters were crucial to Tsai Ing-wen’s 2016 victory but then have shown signs of disappointment since then deserted the DPP during the November 2018 local elections. Yet, voters under 40 contributed significantly to Tsai’s victory over Lai Ching-te in the DPP primary, showing that she has not completely lost her political appeal. The role of youth voters in the upcoming election is still uncertain, but a generational analysis can help us understand this highly volatile context.

Surveys and interviews I conducted during the past fifteen years show the existence of a specific “post-democratic reforms generation” born after 1980. In terms of socio-political values and positions, the generation can be schematically portrayed following its “red lines”, “distrusts” and “concerns”. The red lines are non-negotiable aspects of young Taiwanese lives and selves: identification with the democratic system of a sovereign Taiwan distinct from China; the defence of core values deriving from human rights that tend to make them more progressive than their parents and grandparents; and the rejection of “political polarisation” based mainly on ethnic division and conflicts between older generations of waishengren (mainlanders) and bendiren (locals). Consequently these youths are averse to both ends of the political spectrum that promote either unification with China or radical ethnic Taiwanese nationalism. Facing mounting Chinese pressure, they favour a status quo defined as the defence of a de facto sovereign and independent Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]

Signs warning passengers to 'Please mind the thug' surface after Yuen Long MTR attacks in Hong Kong

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/31
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In a parody of the famous voice on the Hong Kong MTR which exhorted passengers to "Please mind the platform gap," a sign surfaced on July 22 warning passengers to "Please mind the thug," in reference to the gangsters who attacked passengers at the Yuen Long MTR station on July 21.

On July 21, a mob of over 100 men wearing white T-shirts and brandishing blunt weapons indiscriminately assaulted passengers in Hong Kong's Yuen Long MTR Station. Many of the men are suspected of being triad members in collusion with the police, who were conveniently absent from the scene for long stretches of time during the mob's attack.

Protestors who have been demonstrating for the past two months against the controversial extradition bill suspect that the thugs may have been dispatched by Beijing, if not local pro-China politicians such as Junius Ho, to crush the protest movement. Out of defiance, signs started appearing in the Hong Kong MTR on July 22 which read, "Please mind the thugs"

On July 28, this photo of one of these signs was posted on the Instagram page @hkstreetart, where it received 319 likes. It was then in turn uploaded to the social media site Reddit on July 29, where it gained 495 upvotes.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/31
By: Liang Pei-chi, Wang Cheng-chung and Frances Huang

Taipei, July 31 (CNA) Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has informed the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) that he plans to establish a new political party, his top aide said Wednesday.

Ko, who is serving a second term as Taipei mayor, is seen as a contender in the 2020 presidential election against the incumbent Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

According to Ko's top aide Tsai Pi-ju (蔡壁如), the mayor will follow in the footsteps of Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水), who founded the Taiwanese People's Party (台灣民眾黨) in 1927 during the period of Japanese rule.

Chiang was born Aug. 6, 1890 and died Aug. 5, 1931. Ko's political party will be named after Chiang's and will be officially announced on the anniversary of the late leader's birth, the mayor's aides said.    [FULL  STORY]

REGIONAL DIFFERENCE: People in northern Taiwan were most concerned with media reliability, while those in the south worried most about flooding and global warming

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 01, 2019
By: Chien Hui-ju and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Environmental issues, labor rights and salaries were listed as the public issues that receive the

most attention, while people in different regions pay closer attention to different issues, a National Applied Research Laboratories survey released yesterday found.

The survey was the first conducted by the laboratories on the social issues about which Taiwanese are most concerned, Science and Technology Policy Research and Information Center associate researcher Lin Pin-hua (林品華) told a news conference in Taipei.

Environmental affairs were listed as the top concern by 15 percent of respondents, followed by labor rights and wages (12 percent), food safety (11 percent), public disasters (10 percent) and energy (10 percent), she said.

People are concerned about environmental issues, such as reducing trash production and recycling, and they hope to promote policies to help middle-aged and older people return to workplace, the survey found.    [FULL  STORY]

The new road will shorten travel times between Yilan and Hualien counties

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/30
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The new road constructed as part of the Suhua Improvement Project is expected to open on Jan. 5, 2020, project chief Shao Hou-chieh (邵厚潔) said in a Liberty Times report on Tuesday (July 30).

The 38.8 km Suhua Improvement Project road has three sections, between Su’ao and Dong'ao, Nan’ao and Heping, and Hezhong and Dachingshui. The Su’ao and Dong'ao section has been open since Feb. 5, 2018.

The combined length of the Nan’ao and Heping section and the Hezhong and Dachingshui section is 29.1 km, of which 20.7 km comprises five tunnels. So far, 92 percent of the construction of the two sections has been completed, Liberty Times reported.

Electricity is being installed throughout the tunnels in the two sections, the Suhua Improvement Engineering Office said. It added that electricity supply is a significant milestone for the whole project as it means the tunnels are nearing completion.    [FULL  STORY]