Bloomberg News
Date: July 20, 2020
By: Iain Marlow, Miaojung Lin and Kari Lindberg

(Bloomberg) — For decades, Hong Kong served as a bridge between China and Taiwan. Now, that appears to be just one more thing that’s changing in the former British colony.

China’s insistence that Taiwanese officials as a condition of stay in Hong Kong sign a statement agreeing that both sides belong to “one China” adds pressure on Taipei to close its de facto consulate in the city. The decision not only potentially impacts millions of people who travel between the two places each year, it also chips away at the city’s role as a gateway from China to the democratic world.

The move advances two goals of President Xi Jinping: punishing Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen for her refusal to accept the “one-China” framework and curbing perceived sources of outside interference in Hong Kong. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong and its predecessor agency have provided Taiwan a diplomatic toehold in the city for more than five decades, outlasting Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.

“This development is a reflection of the tighter change in mainland China’s policy toward Taiwan,” said Sonny Lo, an academic and political commentator in Hong Kong. “Hong Kong is now a battleground of geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and China on the one hand, and between the mainland and Taiwan on the other.”    [FULL  STORY]

Legal scholar Xu Zhangrun refuses to be muffled despite having been detained

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/20
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Totalitarianism is doomed to fail and freedom will eventually descend upon China, said outspoken Chinese academic Xu Zhangrun (許章潤), who was released from arbitrary detention on July 12.

Xu, a 57-year-old former law professor at prestigious Tsing Hua University in Beijing recently dismissed after two decades for his unrelenting criticism of the authorities, made the remark in an open letter to the university’s alumni, wrote CNA.

A total of 549 alumni donated over 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) to Xu in one day in an online fundraiser organized by Yan Huai (閻淮), a Tsing Hua alumnus and a former member of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Xu has declined to accept the donation, saying the funds should be directed to those in need and that he will strive to make a living penning articles.

In a harsh tone, Xu lashed out at the CCP and its mouthpieces for painting a rosy picture of a society more accurately marked by suffering and where many people can hardly make ends meet. "China is on the brink, and its intellectual world is characterized by decadence, pretension, and compliance," he lamented.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/20/2020
By: Yang Shu-min and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, July 20 (CNA) The Council of Agriculture's (COA) Forestry Bureau on Monday signed a cooperation agreement with a local wildlife conservation society to jointly establish the first ever large-scale wild animal rescue center in eastern Taiwan.

COA Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城), Forestry Bureau Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) and WildOne Wildlife Conservation Association President Chi Meng-jou (綦孟柔) inked the agreement.

Huang said that the public and private sectors will work together to establish the wildlife rescue center and put it into operation on Aug. 15.

The establishment of the center is of great importance for Taiwan's promotion of wildlife conservation because the eastern area is home to a wide variety of wildlife species, Huang noted.    [FULL  STORY]

HEALTH BENEFITS: The plant also boosts the immune system and reduces inflammation, the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station director said

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 21, 2020
By: Chien Hui-ju and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

A local variety of Echinacea purpurea grown by the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station could be useful in the development of a COVID-19 drug, the station said.

Swiss researchers have discovered that when used as a component in medicines, Echinacea purpurea — commonly known as the purple coneflower — showed some effectiveness in combating strains of coronavirus, station director Lee Hung-hsi (李紅曦) said on Thursday, adding that the particular variety of flower grown at the station was shown to be more effective than others.

Samples of the plant were earlier this month given to National Taiwan University Hospital to begin testing its effectiveness in combating COVID-19, she said.

The station began trying to propagate the plant eight years ago due to the growing international market for health food and preventive health products, Lee said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan's media said envoy refused to sign statement supporting Beijing's view that Taiwan is part of 'one China'

Asia Times
Date: July 17, 2020
By: AT Contributor

Taiwan on Friday said its top representative to Hong Kong has returned home due to “unnecessary political obstacles,” with local media reporting he refused to sign a pro-Beijing statement. 

China has been angered by Taiwan’s support for the city’s pro-democracy protests and the government’s decision to open an office to help Hong Kongers who want to relocate to the island.

Beijing’s new national security law, imposed on Hong Kong late last month, has further strained ties, ordering Taiwanese political organizations to declare staff and assets.

Kao Ming-tsun, the acting director of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, “was forced to return to Taiwan because the Hong Kong side violated the consensus and set up unnecessary political obstacles,” said Chiu Chui-cheng, spokesman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan’s top China policy body.     [FULL  STORY]

Year of the Mountain promotional video captures spirit of central Taiwan's mountain range as nation reopens

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/17
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A press event for the release of a short film introducing the mountainous beauty of central Taiwan took place on Friday (July 17), seeking to promote the Year of the Mountain tourism initiative.

Titled “Land of Legends – Taiwan’s Ali Mountain (神話的大地),” the 3-minute video features tales of the indigenous Tsou people (鄒族) in Alishan, a mountainous area in Chiayi County home to a vast forest of divine giant trees. The project was commissioned by the Alishan National Scenic Area Administration (ANSAA).

The clip was filmed by Kengo Kobayashi (小林賢伍), a Taiwan-based Japanese photographer known for his “Matcha Mountain" (抹茶山), an Instagrammable spot in Yilan. “Legends create conversations along the journey,” says the film, which takes the audience on a journey through mountains that teem with natural treasures, a sea of clouds, steam trains, and indigenous features.

According to Kobayashi, Alishan boasts a rich legacy from the Japanese colonial period. He believes those visiting the area from his home country will feel right at home, noting that many senior Tsou tribespeople even speak Japanese.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/17/2020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, July 17 (CNA) Short-stay travelers from Taiwan to Guam will no longer need to receive a COVID-19 test and self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival beginning July 24, the Taiwan representative of the Guam Visitors Bureau said Friday.

Guam issued the new quarantine protocol Friday ahead of easing restrictions to Pandemic Condition of Readiness 3 on July 20. The protocol will allow visitors from COVID-19 low-risk areas to stay in Guam for up to five days without a quarantine or testing required.

Taiwan will be listed among the low-risk areas, said Sandra Huang (黃芷筠), a public relations agent for the bureau in Taiwan, but it was not immediately clear what other countries will be on that list.

Guam had originally planned to reopen to Taiwanese, Japanese, and South Koreans on July 1 without a quarantine, but that was postponed in late June because of a spike in local cases.
[FULL  STORY]

PENSION REFORM: His speech was found to have incited protesters to clash with police as they sought to break into the Legislative Yuan, prosecutors said

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 18, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

1Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) and 12 others were yesterday charged for their roles in a 2018 demonstration against military pension cuts that turned violent, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said.

In the indictment, prosecutors say that Wu, then deputy head of a veterans’ group, and Wang Po-yun (王寶芸) of the Blue Sky Action Alliance encouraged violence when they spoke at a rally in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on April 25, 2018.

Their speeches were found to have incited protesters to clash with police as people sought to break into the Legislative Yuan, they said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 16 July, 2020
By: Katherine Wei

Foreign ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou has reiterated the government’s position that the South China Sea islands belong to the Republic of China. The Republic of China is Taiwan’s official name.

Ou was speaking Thursday, shortly after China and the United States raised yet another dispute about the South China Sea. Ou said there should be no doubt that Taiwan’s rights to the islands and the surrounding waters are protected by international laws, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.     [FULL  STORY]

ITV News
Date: 16 July 2020
By: Debi Edward, Asia Correspondent

What used to be an annual rehearsal has become a show of readiness. For 36 years Taiwan has staged its military drills, with a day dedicated to a mock invasion from China. Never has that day felt more important, the threat more real.

The recent crackdown in Hong Kong has shown how aggressive and impatient China has become with its autonomous territories. It’s imposition of the National Security Law at the beginning of this month has already prompted thousands of Hong Kongers to consider leaving and prompted the arrest or intimidation of anyone who dares to speak out in support of democracy or worse, independence.

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The Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee fled to Taipei last year. He and five colleagues were taken into Chinese custody in 2015 and interrogated for months about the books and magazines they were selling, some of which contained details of the secrets and scandals of Communist Party officials.

He has found sanctuary in Taiwan and reopened his bookshop, Causeway Books. Following the introduction of the new National Security Law in Hong Kong he has begun working to help Hong Kongers follow in his footsteps.    [FULL  STORY]