Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-14

The government of the northern city of Hsinchu is doing all it can to make

new immigrants feel at home. That’s according to Hsinchu deputy mayor Shen Hui-hung, speaking to RTI on Monday.

Local governments around Taiwan are working with the central government to promote the New Southbound policy. The policy aims to promote cultural and economic ties with South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Shen said Hsinchu has always been considered an immigrant city in its 300 years of history. Today, the Hsinchu Science Park is home to many foreign nationals working there. Currently more than 9,000 immigrants reside in Hsinchu.    [FULL  STORY]

The Interpreter 
Date: 14 August 2018 
By: Lauren Dickey

Since 1971, when the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2758 and recognised the People’s Republic of China as “the only legitimate representatives of China”, Taiwan has faced increasing challenges from Beijing that impact Taipei’s ability to maintain formal diplomatic relationships. These pressures have become particularly acute in the past few years as some of Taiwan’s formal allies have been enticed into normalising relations with Beijing.

At the time of writing, only 17 countries and the Holy See maintained formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. These small-country diplomatic relationships underpin Taiwan’s ability to assert autonomy and maintain de facto sovereignty amid Chinese efforts for unification.

A small polity, such as Taiwan, is certainly cognisant that its ability to influence international politics through military, economic, or political means may not be commensurate with the abilities of great powers.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/08/14
By: George Liao,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Taichung Transportation Bureau Director-

General Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) said during a city council meeting on Tuesday (Aug. 14) that beginning on October 1, transfer from train to bus within Taichung City by using an EasyCard or iPASS card within two hours will be totally free of charge, even after the bus riding distance is over 10 kilometers, according to a Central News Agency report.

Wang said currently transfer from train to bus within the city by using an authorized electronic payment card is free if the bus riding distance is within 10 kilometers, but the transfer is chargeable after 10 kilometers, the report said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/14
By: Tai Ya-chen and Lee Hsin-Yin

London, Aug. 13 (CNA) Taipei has moved up two places in the rankings of the world’s most livable cities to 58th place, according to the 2018 Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Livability Ranking.

Taipei edged past the South Korean capital Seoul, which dropped one spot to 59th from last year, according to the report released Monday.

For the first time, the Austrian capital Vienna topped the list of 140 cities surveyed by the EIU, dislodging Australia’s Melbourne, which had held first place for a record seven consecutive years.

Although both Melbourne and Vienna have registered improvements in livability over the last six months, increases in Vienna’s ratings, particularly in the stability category, have been enough for the city to overtake Melbourne, the report said.    [FULL  STORY]

NEWS CONFERENCES: The KMT’s candidate for Taipei mayor said he was sorry that his remarks citing health ministry data had angered some groups of people

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 15, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate for Taipei mayor, Ting

Shou-chung (丁守中), yesterday apologized for remarks made on Monday that have been seen as discriminatory about single men who live alone, saying that he only meant to encourage government agencies to use big data in fighting crime.

“Regarding my comments yesterday, which some people felt constituted labeling and stereotyping and have angered certain groups of people, I hereby solemnly offer my apology,” the former lawmaker said at a news conference at the party’s Taipei headquarters.

He said he just wanted to help strengthen the nation’s safety net for women and young children through the analysis of scientific statistics and the data he cited were from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-13

President Tsai Ing-wen is in Los Angeles, on a stopover en route to Central

America. This is her first trip to the United States since US President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act into law in March.

The law allows high-level US officials to visit Taiwan and vice versa. That’s a break from previous US policy. In the past, the United States did not allow bilateral visits by Cabinet-level ministers, but it did allow Taiwanese presidents to make transit stops in the US on their way to other countries.

President Tsai Ing-wen shakes hands with some of the hundreds of people gathered in front of the Culture Center of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. It’s the first open and public visit by a Taiwanese president to a Taiwanese government institution in the United States.    [FULL  STORY]

Foreign Policy Research Institute
Date: August 13, 2018 
By: June Teufel Dreyer
Much overlooked in continuing discussions about arms sales and what kind of strategy Taiwan should employ to counter an invasion by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the reality that the Beijing government’s real aim is to force unification without firing a shot—by forcing its government to capitulate. In what might be called an anaconda strategy, the target is squeezed until it cannot resist, then swallowed whole.

During the administration of former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016), this gradual constriction was achieved through a series of agreements cunningly described as economic rather than political. As all good Marxists know, economics is the foundation upon which all else in society, including politics, rests. No economic agreement is ever without political implications. In this case, the quid pro quo from Beijing may have been a tacit understanding that it would not seek to further reduce the number of countries that accorded diplomatic recognition to the Republic of China (ROC), i.e. Taiwan. As a case in point, even after the Gambia, a small African state almost entirely surrounded by Senegal, broke relations with Taiwan in 2013, China did not reciprocate. Beijing also allowed Taiwan observer status in the United Nations World Health Assembly, albeit on a year-to-year approval basis that relegated Taiwan to a status below that of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC.

Ma, meanwhile, ignored rising public dissatisfaction with his trade agreements, which came to a head in 2014 when his efforts to force through a Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement triggered the Sunflower Movement, whereby critics—primarily young people and students—occupied Taiwan’s national legislature, as well as protests that led to his Kuomintang (KMT) party’s devastating defeat in the next election. Beijing then demanded that newly elected President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) accept a so-called 1992 Consensus in which each side agreed that there was but one China while having different interpretations of the one China. The DPP, not having been part of the negotiations and pointing out that the term 1992 Consensus had been invented by a KMT spokesperson eight years after the meeting took place, declined to do so.

Slowly, the pace of the anaconda strategy was stepped up, in across the spectrum moves that included diplomatic, economic, and military efforts as well as attempts to destabilize Taiwan society from within.   [FULL  STORY]

As Taiwan begins negotiating new agreements under New Southbound Policy, Vietnam hopes for more cooperation opportunities

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Jessica Adriana,Taiwan News

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Chen Weihai (陳維海), the representative of the Vietnamese Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, who just retired from his position yesterday (Aug. 12), said in a recent interview with CNA that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy can be considered successful over past two years, not only has Taiwan’s GDP improved but also increased the number of visitors from India and ASEAN countries.

Over the past two years, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy has been promoting and strengthening its relationship with Southeast Asian countries.

According to the statistics from the Office of Trade Negotiations, the number of visitors from New Southbound countries (including ten ASEAN countries, six South Asian countries, New Zealand, and Australia) arriving in Taiwan in 2017 reached more than 2.28 million, an increase of 27.65% since 2016.

In order to increase the investment opportunities within these countries, including Vietnam, Taiwan is negotiating new agreements. Chen said that negotiations between Taiwan and Vietnam have been going well and have resulted in agreements, but there are some technical issues that he hope can be quickly solved so that they can sign further agreements soon.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Su Mu-chun and Evelyn Kao 

Taipei, Aug. 13 (CNA) The East Asian Olympic Committee (EAOC) has declined to change its decision to cancel the East Asian Youth Games that were scheduled for 2019 in Taichung, the city’s Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said Monday.

Lin said he has received a letter of rejection from EAOC Chairman Liu Peng (劉鵬), in response to a petition by the Taichung City government for the committee to reconsider its position on the issue.

In a Facebook post, Lin said he was aware of the difficulties involved in asking the EAOC to reinstate Taichung’s right to host the 2019 games, in the face of pressure from China.

“However, we do not see the rejection of our petition to the EAOC as the end of road,” he said. “We will not give up.”    [FULL  STORY]