Taipei Times
Date: Aug 19, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

The reopening of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Guam, which had been set for this month, would be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero on Monday last week said that she tested positive for the virus, but added that she only exhibited moderate symptoms and would continue to lead the fiscal and COVID-19 response teams from home.

As of yesterday afternoon, the US territory of nearly 168,000 people had reported 577 confirmed cases, with five deaths.

The Guam office is expected to reopen at the end of next month, but there is still uncertainty amid the pandemic, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.    [FULL  STORY]

Beijing likely fears Taipei's ultimate goal is to gain US and wider Western recognition as a sovereign state

Asia Times
Date: August 18, 20206
By: Richard Javasd Heydarian

Rising US support for Taiwan, seen in this week’s finalization of a US$62 billion F-16 fighter jet deal, is driving China to ramp up its military intimidation tactics against the self-governed island.

Last week, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) started “massive” and “unprecedented” military drills to “send a very strong signal to the secessionists in Taiwan and those who intend to disrupt peace and stability across the Straits,” according to China’s global news network CGTN. 

The war games saw the PLA Eastern Theater Command simultaneously deploy multiple branches for “organized consecutive, realistic drills” across the far ends of the Taiwan Straits. 

The Chinese state-backed Global Times described the large-scale exercises as a “clear and unprecedented deterrence toward secessionists of the island as well as the US, as the Trump administration has increased its links with the Taiwan secessionist authority, and the possibility of peaceful reunification is decreasing sharply.”    [FULL  STORY]

MPs calling for country to ditch extradition treaty with HK as Senate president, Prague mayor gear up for Taipei visit

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/18
By: Micah McCartney, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwa­­­­­­­­n News) — As a Czech delegation prepares for its high-profile trip to Taiwan at the end of August, China continues to hemorrhage influence over the Czech Republic's body politic, and opposition party members are seeking to abandon the Central European nation's extradition agreement with Hong Kong in light of that city's national security law, which many view as the final nail in the coffin of "one country, two systems."

The Czech Senate is expected to pass a resolution calling for the country to back out the extradition treaty. Its Committee on Foreign Affairs recommended last month that the entire body draft a resolution in response to the Chinese Communist Party's violation of Hong Kong's autonomy and obstruction in its legislative processes, Czech News Agency reported.

The resolution will call China out over its about-face on the "one country, two systems" framework and its failure to adhere to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a legally binding agreement that guarantees Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy,” the freedoms of speech and assembly, and other rights until 2047. Foreign Affairs Committee members also raised concerns over the threat that Hong Kong's sweeping new security law poses to the rights and due process of Czechs theoretically prosecuted the special administrative region.

Hong Kong's national security law, which entered force on July 1, imposing harsh penalties for the broad, vaguely defined crimes of "subversion," "secession," "collusion with a foreign power," and "terrorism." In the weeks since, Hongkongers have been arrested for a range of offenses, from being active in the local democracy movement to carrying homemade pro-independence signs.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/18/2020
By: Huang Li-yun and Emerson Lim

Taipei, Aug. 18 (CNA) A Taiwanese engineer and seven others were charged last week for operating an online gambling website targeting Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The 49-year old engineer, surnamed Wu, allegedly set up a computer shop in March at his residence in Zhubei City, Hsinchu County, using it as a front for the online gambling operation, said

An investigation showed that the website was written in Vietnamese, which attracted many Vietnamese migrant workers in the area, Chang said.

About 30 Vietnamese migrant workers were customers of the website in March alone, raking in more than NT$100,000 (US$3,361) for Wu and his group, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 19, 2020
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday called the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) an “autocracy,” after two of his KMT colleagues were summoned by prosecutors for allegedly spreading rumors about Triple Stimulus Vouchers.

Tainan City councilors Wang Chia-chen (王家貞) and Lee Chung-tsen (李中岑) on Monday said that they and their assistants were late last month summoned by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning on a charge of breaching the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), after they held a news conference on July 20 alleging that there had been counterfeit vouchers circulating.

A business owner tried to cash in fake vouchers at a bank, which confiscated the bogus vouchers, they told the news conference.

However, the duo’s claims were labeled as fake news by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, as business owners were not allowed to cash in the vouchers before July 23.   [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 17 August, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ho Chih-wei is making good on a promise he made last month. The lawmaker pledged to give away a thousand fried chicken cutlets if the police unearthed any counterfeit stimulus vouchers.    [FULL  STORY]

The frontman of metal band Chthonic has also won two terms as a member of Taiwanese parliament. He explains how music gave him a voice – and what he wants to say next

The Guardian
Date: 17 Aug 2020
By: Rob Sayce

It’s a crisp December night in the heart of Taipei, and Freddy Lim is presiding over a campaign rally to remember. Flanked by his bandmates, and looking out over a 50,000-strong crowd, he steps to the front of the stage and lets out a guttural scream. Even without the CO2 cannons, video screens and orchestra at his back, or the facepaint daubed on his forehead, it’s an unlikely scene for a parliamentary candidate in the thick of a re-election campaign.

“During the campaign I was so exhausted every day,” he remembers, looking back on the events of 21 December. The night’s rally-cum-concert has just been released for posterity as Taiwan Victory Live, his band Chthonic’s latest live album and concert film – as well as a document of his two vocations, metal and legislative politics, mid-collision. “But on stage, I felt like I’d been refreshed, like there were thousands of people at my back and I could do anything,” he grins.

“Those people banging their heads and moshing, exchanging energy with you, they provide something very unique, deep in your soul, that can support you to keep going. I’m so happy we did it, because my team had debates over whether voters might have wanted their member of parliament to seem more serious. If I went back to being a metalhead, would it be a good image? But a lot of fans and supporters, after that concert, tried to mobilise campaigns to convince people to vote for me in my district. I don’t think any other kind of event can do that.” He held his seat.

Since forming in 1995 with Freddy on lead vocals, Chthonic have become cultural ambassadors for Taiwan – its history, myths and struggles. China maintains that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China: not a sovereign entity, but a rogue province that will one day be brought under its control. Acknowledging Taiwan’s independence, and risking reprisals from China, has therefore become awkward for other countries. As a result, Taiwan is excluded from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, has official diplomatic ties with only 14 UN member states, and since emerging as a democracy in the late 1980s and early 90s, has faced internal tensions between pro-independence and pro-China factions.    [FULL  STORY]

Telecom giant says temporary glitches possible because two generations of networks share cell towers

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/17
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — With customer complaints mounting over a worsened 4G mobile connection after the launch of Taiwan's 5G network in early July, one telecom giant admits its 4G services have had an "unwanted" slower data connection since February.

Rumors have been circulating that local telecom service providers have slowed down their 4G mobile data to push customers to switch to 5G plans. Chunghwa Telecom's (中華電信) 4G subscribers are said to have complained the most.

Chunghwa Telecom responded by dismissing the rumors, saying the company would never promote 5G at the expense of the 4G plans. It explained that traffic had skyrocketed since early February during the coronavirus outbreak, leading to a congested 4G network given the large base of subscribers.

However, the company did not rule out a temporary glitch lasting around 10 minutes when the 5G network was launched, saying the network settings had been reset since the two different network generations share nearly all the country's cell towers.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/17/2020
By: CNA interns Grace Hu, Meryl Kao, and Eden Wang

Taipei, Aug. 17 (CNA) The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) will hold its annual outdoor concert series starting later this month but will be accompanied for the first time by ballet performances to give the shows a visual component, the NSO said Monday.

The concert series, held every year since 2017, will put on shows in Hualien on Aug 22, Miaoli on Sept. 5, Tainan on Sept. 6, and Penghu on Oct. 9 under the theme "Shall We Dance," the NSO said in a statement.

The orchestra will perform well-known masterpieces, including "Arabian Dance" from Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, and arias "Non piu andrai" from Mozart's opera Le Nozze di Figaro and "Shall We Dance" from the movie The King and I, according to the NSO.

Incorporating ballet into the performances for the first time will give the audience a visual presentation in addition to the musical experience, said the orchestra's executive director Kuo Wen-chen (郭玟岑).    [FULL  STORY]