CNN
Date: March 20, 2018
By: Joshua Berlinger and Katie Hunt, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN)Xi Jinping began his second term as China’s president with a blunt warning for Taiwan, an island it views as a breakaway province.

“All acts and tricks to split the motherland are doomed to failure and will be condemned by the people and punished by history,” Xi said Tuesday at the close of the National People’s Congress, Beijing’s rubber-stamp legislature.

“Every inch of our great motherland’s territory cannot be separated from China,” he said, drawing loud applause from his audience inside the Great Hall of the People.
The tough talk on Taiwan isn’t new. But Xi now has the option to serve as president for life, meaning he can execute strategies that last decades rather than years.

That long leash could give Xi opportunity to focus on achieving something that’s eluded Chinese Communist leaders for nearly seven decades since the founding of the People’s Republic: regaining control of Taiwan.

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-20

A survey of global cities by the US-based Mercer Management Consulting says Taipei is

the city with the world’s 84th-best quality of life.

The annual survey is meant to help companies set salaries for employees assigned overseas. The latest edition of the survey examined living conditions in 231 cities. Factors used to rank the cities included political stability, healthcare, education, crime, entertainment, and transport.

Taiwan was also represented on the list by the central city of Taichung, which placed 101st.

Both cities on the list placed roughly in the same range as a number of other cities in the region. Hong Kong was 71st and Seoul 79th, while Shanghai came in 103rd and Beijing and Guangzhou tied for 119th.

The city at the top of the list for the ninth consecutive year was Vienna. Zurich was second, while Auckland and Munich tied for third place.    [FULL  STORY]

Magnitude 5.2 temblor shakes southwestern Taiwan’s Chiayi County

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/20
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A magnitude 5.2 earthquake jolted southwestern Taiwan’s Chiayi County today (March 20) at 5:22 p.m., according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

The epicenter of the temblor was 30.7 kilometers east-southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 17.9 kilometers, based on CWB data.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/20
By: Huang Ya-chuan and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 20 (CNA) The second reactor at the No. 2 nuclear power plant in New Taipei is expected to start generating electricity Wednesday at the earliest once safety checks have been completed that day, and to be running at full capacity by March 29, Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said Tuesday.

Taipower got official written approval from the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) that day to restart the reactor, which has been offline since May 2016 following a glitch in its electrical system during major maintenance work.

The last round of maintenance on the reactor was completed in December 2017. Taipower then filed an application Feb. 5 to restart the reactor.    [FULL  STORY]

The National Interest
Date: March 19, 2018
By: Ian Easton

Taiwan’s government and military (like the rest of Taiwanese society) are far tougher than they get credit for. But they can only do so much by themselves. The Pentagon has a critical role to play in assisting Taiwan maximize its war fighting capabilities. With America’s help, Taiwan can make sure its defense investments factor into Beijing’s calculations and, hopefully, prevent a future invasion from occurring in the first place.

Various sources from within the People’s Republic of China have allegedly suggested that time is running out for Taiwan’s democracy. In their narrative, China’s iron-fisted leader, Xi Jinping, is “losing patience” and could order the invasion of Taiwan in the early 2020s. The world’s most dangerous flashpoint might witness an overwhelming amphibious blitz, perhaps before July 2021 to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

That’s the narrative. The reality is that China will probably not attack Taiwan in such a radical and high-risk fashion. Xi and his top lieutenants are far more likely to draw-out and escalate the war of nerves across the Taiwan Strait. They will continue using disinformation and other techniques to drain Washington’s confidence that Taiwan can be defended, while ramping up subversive activities to undermine the island nation’s confidence and willpower.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese netizens went berserk after Beijing Walmart listed a product’s country of origin as Taiwan

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/19
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — On Friday (March 19), Chinese netizens got in an uproar over

photos and video of sign at a Beijing Walmart which marked a display of products as being produced in the country of Taiwan, rather than a part of China, which the Chinese government has lately been pressuring corporations say.

On Friday, a Chinese user of Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) posted a video taken from inside the Dongguan branch of a Walmart in Beijing’s Changping District which showed imported products being displayed at a discounted price. Products imported from the UK and South Korea were labeled as “place of origin UK” and “place of origin South Korea,” but for a group of products imported from Taiwan, the sign read, “country of origin Taiwan.”

After the video surfaced, the Chinese media site Observer Network (观察者网) called an employee at the Beijing Walmart about their decision to label the products as coming from the country of Taiwan, instead of “province” or “area” as is the required practice in China, she indignantly replied, “Its (the product’s) country of origin is Taiwan, therefore it must be labeled as Taiwan, it can’t be false.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/19
By Chiu Po-sheng and Frances Huang 

Taipei, March 19 (CNA) Nearly nine in 10 Taiwanese workers are either willing to work abroad or have overseas work experience, an online job bank poll has found, indicating an ongoing interest among Taiwanese to develop their careers outside of their home country.

Some 60.9 percent of 1,019 users of the online 1111 job bank surveyed said they wanted to land a job overseas, while 21.1 percent said they had previous overseas work experience and 7.5 percent were currently working outside Taiwan.

Only 10.5 percent of respondents said they were not considering finding a job in another country.

The main reason by far for the heavy interest in working abroad was that pay levels overseas are seen as being higher than they are in Taiwan, cited by 71.6 percent of those respondents who have worked, are working or want to work overseas.    [FULL  STORY]