MUTUAL BENEFITS: Paraguay’s president called on Taiwanese businesses to invest in his country, which can serve as a gateway to the South American market

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 12, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez yesterday said the friendship between his

country and Taiwan would never change and that Paraguay would forever remain Taiwan’s loyal ally in South America.

Asked about his country’s commitment to Taiwan amid a rash of defections by allies in Latin America and the Caribbean to China, Abdo Benitez told a news conference in Taipei that Paraguay has business relations with every country in the world, but that was no reason to abandon its allies.

“We won’t sacrifice our ties with any of our allies or good friends” over business relations with another country, he said.

“We firmly believe no country in the world can restrict our sovereign decision to make friends with another country,” he added.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-10-10

Legislature President Su Jia-chyuan has focused on what makes Taiwan good in his

National Day address. Su delivered his remarks as part of this year’s National Day celebrations in Taipei.

Su spoke of Taiwan’s diversity, from its indigenous peoples to later ethnic Han Chinese arrivals and the new immigrants that have made Taiwan their home in recent years. He said that creating a respectful, tolerant society amid diversity is a challenge many countries face. He also said he believes Taiwan has done a better job in this regard than most.

Su spoke about the warmth of people in Yilan, where a National Day party took place on Tuesday. He also spoke about the willingness of people in Taiwan to help one another in times of disaster. He said this can be seen in Hualien, site of the National Day fireworks show, which experienced a powerful earthquake in February.

Su said Taiwan is good because its people are warm and welcoming, proud to be from Taiwan and proud of their freedom and democracy. He said that Taiwan is good because it has athletes who have shown the world their fighting spirit. And he said that Taiwan is good because of its international friends who offer support and help overcome difficulties on the international stage.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese officials and regional academics put forth responses to Chinese ‘sharp power,’ cyberattacks and ‘fake news.’

The News Lens
Date: 2018/10/10
By: Nick Aspinwall

Taiwan is ploughing an uneasy passage between the Scylla and Charybdis of foreign interference and the danger of lurching back towards authoritarianism as it comes to terms with its role as ground zero for Chinese cybersecurity and sharp power threats.

This was the takeaway from the inaugural Defense Forum on Regional Security, hosted Oct. 8-9 by the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), a think tank founded in May 2018. The conference addressed regional cybersecurity, the threat of disinformation, and Chinese “sharp power”: a newly fashionable term described at the forum by Chung Chien-peng (鍾健平), Professor of Politics at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, as “hard power in a soft power glove.”

Scholars and public officials ruminated on U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s aggressive policy speechon China last week, a Bloomberg story on an alleged Chinese hardware hack, and the disappearance and resignation of Interpol President Meng Hongwei, who has been accused by China of taking bribes.

In assessing this shifting security environment, the upshot was that Taiwan has much to clarify about its strategy of inter-departmental and external collaboration in confronting, and coexisting with, China. At the conference, academics from East, Southeast, and South Asia shared analyses and proposed policy responses with an audience of Taiwanese officials, foreign representatives, and journalists.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/10/10
By:  Central News Agency

Children’s rights activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi is

scheduled to arrive in Taiwan Wednesday, where he will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen and give a number of talks, according to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India.

It is the second visit to Taiwan by the 64-year-old Indian national and founder of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), or Save the Childhood Movement.

Satyarthi will also attend the Yushan Forum on Thursday, a signature annual event held by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation, which was established to promote stronger links between countries covered by the country’s New Southbound Policy.

At the forum, he will represent a foreign VIP delegation visiting Taiwan to observe the country’s Double Ten National Day, according to the center.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/10/10
By: Rita Cheng and Flor Wang

Washington, Oct. 9 (CNA) Mike Green, a former official of the United States National

Security Council (NSC), on Tuesday hailed President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) cross-Taiwan strait policy, saying it was steady-handed.

“Her decision on defense strategy and cross-strait relations are going to be very important and valuable to how Washington views its own commitment to Taiwan,” Green said. “Washington and Tokyo are pretty good, confident about Tsai’s government.”

“That’s really a lot of assets for Taiwan,” said Green, who served as director for Asian affairs at the U.S. NSC (2004-2005) in the administration of former U.S. President George Bush, told CNA after a seminar hosted by the National Committee on United States-China Relations.

He said, however, that Tsai has to be careful not to surprise Washington or Tokyo.
[FUYLL  STOREY]

Bloomberg
Date: October 9, 2018
By: Debby Wu

Taiwan’s president will highlight the threat China poses to Asia and beyond in her national

day speech Wednesday, echoing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s harshly worded criticism of Beijing.

President Tsai Ing-wen will seek to emphasize the destabilizing impact China is having on the world, contrasting Beijing’s behavior with her administration’s efforts to be part of a stable world order, according to a Chinese-language excerpt of her speech provided by her office Tuesday.

“We will not escalate conflicts impulsively and we will not cave in and submit to pressure from China,” Tsai will say, according to the prepared remarks. “Taiwan’s democratic transition provides a ray of light in the dark for all those seeking democracy.”

The speech comes as tensions between Beijing and both Taipei and its main security guarantor, the U.S., reach their highest in years. Tsai’s comments bare a similarity to a speech by Pence in Washington last week, in which he laid out allegations of Chinese election interference in the U.S. and lauded Taiwan’s democracy as a model for Chinese people.    [FULL  STORY]

Top 3 most attractive check-in locations in Asia are Korean Demilitarized Zone, Kyoto, and Banteay Chhmar

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/10/09
By: Alicia Nguyen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s northeastern coast which includes some of the most well-known tourist spots – Jiufen, Shifen, and Yeliu, was named in the list of top 10 most check-in locations in Asia, published by the travel booking platform KLOOK.

In the rise of the internet and social media platforms, more travelers need to check Instagram for references of where to go and take good photos before embarking on their trip.

Accumulating figures from January to September in 2018, KLOOK revealed its list of the 10 most popular check-in locations, with Taiwan, Japan, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Korea included in the list.

Ranking seventh on the list, Taiwan’s geographically stunning northeast coast, where the most famous sights of Yeliu, Jiufen, Shifen are found, is a charming traveling route with a wide range of coastal and mountain landscapes.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/10/09
By: Chen Wei-ting and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Oct. 9 (CNA) Two cancer-related societies in Taiwan are urging the government to

allow national health insurance to cover payment for immunotherapy for late-stage lung cancer patients without having such patients receive traditional chemotherapy first.

Immunotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that boosts the body’s natural defenses to fight cancer, offers “a slim chance of survival” to late-stage lung cancer patients, said Taiwan Clinical Oncology Society President Kao Shang-jyh (高尚志) at a recent press conference in Taipei.

He pointed out that each year, more than 13,000 people in Taiwan are diagnosed with lung cancer.

Because lung cancer cannot be easily diagnosed in the early stage, but spreads quickly, over 70 percent of patients are already late stage when diagnosed, Kao said, noting that such cases can no longer be treated with surgery.    [FULL  STORY]