Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/24
By: Wang Cheng-chung and Flor Wang

Taipei, Jan. 24 (CNA) The time required for holders of Taiwan’s Plum Blossom Card to become naturalized Taiwanese citizens has been reduced by four or five months under a revised regulation, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said Thursday.

The decision to expedite the process was made earlier in the day during an MOI meeting, based on an amendment to the Standards for Defining High-Level Professionals for Naturalization.

Effective immediately, holders of the Plum Blossom Card can apply for Taiwan citizenship without having to obtain a recommendation letter from the government agency in charge of the line of their business, even if they have lived in Taiwan for less than five years, the MOI said.

This will help reduce the naturalization process by four or five months, the ministry said.
[FULL  STORY]

TAIPEI MEETING: While MOTC head Lin Chia-lung’s offer was about 20 percent more than TRA’s package, a representative for the families said it was far too low

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 25, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday failed to reach

agreement on compensation for the 18 people killed in the Puyuma Express derailment on Oct. 21 last year, as victims’ families were not happy with the amount offered by MOTC Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍).

Yesterday’s meeting was Lin’s first with the family members since he took office on Monday last week. Ministry officials have met three times with the families.

Lin offered a compensation package of NT$13.2 million (US$427,392) per victim, about 20 percent more than the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) offer of NT$10.75 million, not counting the NT$100,000 in emergency funds given to the families shortly after the accident.

The TRA had based its offer on the settlements reached after the derailments of an Alishan Forest Railway train in 2004 and a 2007 commuter train in Yilan County’s Dali Township (大里), which were NT$9.5 million and NT$9.6 million respectively, and taking into account an inflation rate of 13 percent since 2008.    [FULL  STORY]

Xi’s Jan. 2 speech reiterated the existing PRC stance on its eventual peaceful unification with Taiwan.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/01/23
By: Bonnie S. Glaser, Asia Dialogue

On Jan. 2, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered his first speech focused exclusively on policy toward Taiwan. The occasion for the major policy address was the 40th anniversary of the “message to Taiwan compatriots,” which marked a shift in Beijing’s policy from seeking to “liberate” Taiwan to a new approach of “peaceful reunification.” Having concluded some time ago that Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) seeks to further separate Taiwan from China rather than promote integration, Xi’s speech was a blatant attempt to bypass the government in Taipei and persuade the people of Taiwan of the benefits of reunification. His appeals fell flat, however, and revealed Xi Jinping’s shallow understanding of Taiwan’s democratic system and the aspirations of its people.

As in many other areas of policy, Xi Jinping appears confident that China’s approach will eventually succeed. At least for now, achieving reunification is not an urgent item on Xi Jinping’s agenda.

After recounting China’s painful history of national humiliation at the hands of foreigners beginning with the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century, Xi called on Taiwan “compatriots” to be “proud to be Chinese” and to join their brethren in China in striving to achieve the goal of national rejuvenation. In recent years, however, most polls conducted in Taiwan show that approximately five percent of Taiwan’s citizen self-identify as Chinese. The majority of Taiwan’s population considers Taiwan and China to be two separate countries. Ignoring the fact that China’s proposal of “one country, two systems” has been roundly rejected in Taiwan, Xi presented it as the best and only offer. His overture to “explore a Taiwan plan” for “one country, two systems that “will give full consideration to Taiwan’s real situation” was likely intended to reassure Taiwan’s people that they would get a better deal than Hong Kong. The erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms in recent years under Xi’s rule, however, has strengthened Taiwan’s opposition to “one country, two systems” and heightened fears of political integration with China.
[FULL  STORY]

The Social Change Survey has been tracking societal developments for over 30 years

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/23
By: Ryan Drillsma, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology held a press conference Tuesday to expound the achievements of the Taiwan Social Change Survey; one of the largest social surveys in the world.

The Taiwan Social Change Survey has tracked profound changes in Taiwanese society for over 30 years since the repeal of martial law. It produces data on a wide range of issues from family values to national identity.

This year, for the first time, science and technology risks entered the survey alongside questions on artificial intelligence and green-nuclear issues, Liberty Times reports.

Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology researcher Fu Yang-Chih (傅仰止) explained at the conference that the survey polls citizens on education, social class and mobility, cultural values, religion, interpersonal relationships, social networks and much more. Fu said the new issue is expected to be completed by the end of the year.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/23
By: Chen Chun-hua and Chi Jo-yao 

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) The Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan (HRNTT) embarked on a cycling tour of Taipei on Wednesday as a prelude to a series of activities to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the resistance movement in Tibet against China’s control.

The 2019 Cycling for a Free Tibet event began at the 228 Peace Memorial Park in Taipei and ended outside the Legislative Yuan, where a press conference was held to talk about a rally that will be staged in Taiwan in March to commemorate the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising Day.

At the press conference, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who chairs the Taiwan Parliamentary Group for Tibet, urged Taiwanese to join the rally on March 10 to show the international community Taiwan’s reverence for the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights.

He said bigger events will be held across the world that day to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan resistance movement against China’s control.  [FULL  STORY]

The act of illegal brokers deceiving foreign nationals into studying in Taiwan is alarming

Taiwan News
Date 2019/01/22
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Six of 40 Sri Lankan students studying at University of Kang Ning (UKN) have left Taiwan reportedly because they couldn’t land a job, and the act of illegal brokers deceiving foreign nationals into studying in Taiwan is alarming.

As a punishment to UKN’s involvement in the suspicious enrollment, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE) reduced the numbers of students the university is allowed to enrol, according to a Chinese-language United Daily report.

MOE Department of Higher Education Director-General Chu Hung-chang (朱俊彰) said that these Sri Lankan students were enrolled at the university as regular international students, not as students under industry-academia cooperation projects. Therefore, the university has no obligation to find jobs for these students, but the school must explain to them about the rules of working part-time and help them filter out bad working environments to prevent them from breaking the law, Chu added.

If these students want to drop out of school due to not being able to find a job or other personal reasons, they should have the freedom to make that decision, Chu said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/22
By: Stanley Cheung and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) A majority of people in Hong Kong believe the “one country, two systems” model is not applicable to Taiwan, according to a survey released Tuesday by the University of Hong Kong.

The poll by the university’s Public Opinion Programme conducted earlier this month showed that 59 percent of Hong Kong citizens believed “one country, two systems” is not applicable to Taiwan, up 9 percentage points from the previous poll in August 2018.

It was also the highest since the question was first polled in November 1996, surpassing the previous high of 58.5 percent in March 2015.

Only 29 percent of respondents thought the formula is applicable, down 7 percentage points from the previous poll, and the first time it dipped below 30 percent in the poll’s history.    [FULL  STORY]