NOT FOR CHANGING:Sufin Siluko reiterated that the KMT’s stance is, and always has been, that changes to the ROC’s territory are not referendum topic material

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 17, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has always maintained that territorial change is not an issue that can be put to a referendum, KMT caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said yesterday, a day after some of his KMT colleagues agreed to do just that during a review of proposed amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法).

The Internal Administration Committee on Thursday reviewed several proposed amendments to the Referendum Act during what proved to be a contentious meeting.

While consensuses were reached on several proposals, including lowering the voting age, the referendum thresholds and the required vote for passage, as well as abolishing the Referendum Review Commission, two proposals sparked so much debate that they were left out of the amendments forwarded to the general assembly: a proposal that cross-strait political negotiations should be initiated and ratified by referendum and to list territory change as an item that could be put to a referendum.

While Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) committee members opposed the idea of allowing territory change to be listed as a possible referendum topic — a reversal of the DPP’s traditional stance — KMT legislators Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) agreed to the inclusion.    [FULL  STORY]

A LOT OF TROUBLE:A scheme to avoid paying a fine involved kidnapping, blackmail, procurement for sex, kickbacks, and influence peddling, investigators said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 16, 2016
By: Jason Pan / Staff writer

Prosecutors have filed charges against 12 people suspected of being involved in a more than NT$1 billion (US$31.32 million) public infrastructure project to build an elevated railway in Taichung.

Hua Sheng Engineering Construction Co obtained a tender — part of the “Taichung Metropolitan Area Elevated Railway Project” — to build 21.7km of rail tracks along with elevated station platforms, viaducts, barriers, electrical and utility lines, and underpass crossings.

The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that the company was fined NT$33 million for construction delays and other breaches of its contract.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 16, 2016
By: Christine Chou

TAIPEI, Taiwan — U.S. policymakers have voted unanimously to increase base interest rates by 0.25 percent, to between 0.5 and 0.75 percent. This marks the first rate hike this year and only the second in the past decade. We can expect more rate hikes to come in 2017, as the Fed has hinted it could raise rates at a faster pace next year. Here’s a few tips for people in Taiwan.

More Savings Interest

Savers would be able to pocket a little more interest on their savings account deposits. When the Fed raises short-term rates, banks pay customers higher interest on their deposits. Rates are expected to go up, but it will take a while before savers start seeing a real difference. However, a downside to more money saved up at banks may indicate less people spending money in the local economy.

Mortgage Rates Might Rise

If rates continue to go up, it would impact interest rates for mortgages, car loans and credit cards. Most Taiwanese households devote a substantial portion of their income to pay off monthly installments, so rate hikes are a nightmare to homeowners holding debt — the rate hike decision could mean for them an annual expenditure increase of up to thousands of dollars per year. Homeowners should give serious thought to paying off that mortgage early.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 16, 2016
By: The New York Times

New York Times (NYT): Your book deals with the seeming contradiction of China and Taiwan developing closer economic ties, even as Taiwanese culture moves further away from China’s. How have those trends managed to emerge simultaneously?

Syaru Shirley Lin (林夏如): Once China began to open its economy in the post-Mao era, cultural similarities and a common political objective of creating “one China” led to an explosion of economic relations across the Strait. The Chinese economy was highly complementary to Taiwan’s, and a majority of Taiwanese considered themselves “Chinese.” Today, more than two-thirds of Taiwan’s outward foreign direct investment is to China, which is also Taiwan’s leading trading partner.

However, as cross-strait economic interdependence grew and as Taiwan began to democratize, the residents of the island began to debate what it meant to be Taiwanese, a topic that had been taboo for four decades under the authoritarian Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government. At first, Taiwan’s economic policy toward China oscillated between extreme restriction and extreme liberalization. Some Taiwanese believed supporting economic liberalization with China was a way of promoting unification, while supporting economic restriction with China was equivalent to preserving a separate Taiwan, whether that be simply autonomy or outright independence.

As Taiwanese identity has consolidated, with more than 90 percent of Taiwanese believing they are in some way “Taiwanese,” a consensus has emerged that some degree of economic interdependence with China is unavoidable, but that overdependence is risky. The extreme economic policy options have therefore lost support.

However, support for closer economic relations does not extend to sociopolitical integration. In fact, only 1.5 percent of Taiwanese support immediate unification with China, with even less support among young people. But if Taiwanese identity is threatened, it can become salient again, and extreme options may re-emerge. This was the case in 2014 when Taiwan’s largest student protest — known as the Sunflower movement — successfully opposed a service trade pact that had been negotiated with China.
[FULL  INTERVIEW]