Radio Taiwan International
Date: 13 May, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu says China could scapegoat Taiwan as it faces rising international pressure over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wu was speaking on Tuesday during a TV interview with US network Fox News.

Wu said it is important to uncover the source of COVID-19 because this knowledge will make controlling the disease easier. He said that the US, European countries, and Australia are investigating the source in Wuhan, China, the disease’s presumable origin. He said the results of these investigations will help Taiwan keep COVID-19 under control.    [FULL  STORY]

Large-scale drill will involve myriad military hardware, soldiers

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/12
By: Kelvin Chen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — On Monday (May 12) it was reported that China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) is planning to conduct a large-scale landing exercise in August in the South China Sea with the aim of one day capturing the Taiwan-controlled Dongsha islands (Pratas Islands, 東沙群島).

The beach landing exercise will be carried out by the Southern Theater Command and will involve large numbers of marines, landing ships, hovercrafts, and helicopters: maneuvers on an unprecedented scale, according to Kyodo News.

The Chinese military has grown increasingly anxious about the numerous U.S. military aerial and naval operations in the South China Sea, which has become a potential flashpoint for conflict. U.S. electronic warfare and reconnaissance aircraft frequently fly in the airspace near the Dongsha islands, with more than 13 missions flown in the disputed waters in April alone.

Furthermore, the Trump administration has strengthened relations with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), which China sees as an unlawful partnership. The planned August drills will only increase tensions with the U.S. and Taiwan, the article stated.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/13/2020
By: Yeh Su-ping and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, May 13 (CNA) About 20 environmental protection groups on Wednesday delivered a petition to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, expressing opposition to the discharge of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Roughly 1.2 million metric tons of contaminated water remains from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit the plant on March 11, 2011, destroying key cooling functions and causing a huge leakage of radiation.

The wastewater contains approximately 880 trillion becquerels of tritium, a hydrogen isotope that experts say poses a relatively low risk to human health.

The Japanese government is currently soliciting public opinion on wastewater treatment until June 15, after which it will decide what to do with the contaminated water. One of the options is dumping it into the ocean.    [FULL  STORY]

‘POSITIVE IMPACT’: Agon Hare, who has 1.7 million followers on Facebook, was moved by Taiwan’s battle against COVID-19 and decided to make a video about it

Taipei Times
Date: May 14, 2020
By: Chien Hui-ju / Staff reporter

Following popular video blogger Nuseir Yassin’s video on how Taiwan has performed outstandingly against the COVID-19 pandemic, a member of Yassin’s Nas Daily team has posted a video urging other nations to learn from Taiwan in fighting the novel coronavirus, garnering more than 18 million views as of yesterday.

Agon Hare, Yassin’s cameraman, on Wednesday last week posted the video, titled The First Country to Win Against COVID-19, on the Project Nightfall Facebook page, which has 1.7 million followers.

Yassin, who has more than 15.6 million followers on the Nas Daily Facebook page, on May 2 posted a video titled Why This Country is a Coronavirus Hero, touting Taiwan’s success in preventing a local outbreak without having to implement lockdowns and saying that the nation has been helping other nations, despite not being recognized by many countries and the WHO for political reasons.

K.J. Chang (張少濂), who helped launch an online fundraising campaign to take out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times detailing Taiwan’s position amid controversy surrounding WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ accusations of racism against the nation, said that Nuseir Yassin’s girlfriend, Alyne Tamir, also posted a video to help rally support for Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

AP News
Date: May 12, 2020

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — About two-thirds of Taiwanese don’t identify as Chinese, according to a survey released Tuesday that highlights the challenge China would face in bringing the self-governing island under its control.

The U.S.-based Pew Research Center found that 66% view themselves as Taiwanese, 28% as both Taiwanese and Chinese and 4% as just Chinese. The telephone poll of 1,562 people, conducted last fall, has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

The results are consistent with other polls showing that people in Taiwan increasingly identify only as Taiwanese, Pew said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese journalist says China's political, economic position weakened by coronavirus

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/12
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The case for Taiwan to be recognized as a country by the United States and by the rest of the world is stronger than ever and partly because of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Taiwan-based journalist Hilton Yip wrote in Foreign Policy Friday (May 8).

While the island’s image has improved due to its successful actions against the virus and its donations of masks across the world, even if it does succeed in attending the World Health Assembly (WHA) or in joining other international organizations, it will still be only a guest rather than a full member, argues Yip.

He sees three reasons why the U.S. and the world should act now on Taiwan. China “has acted more like an erratic and unreliable dictatorship rather than a responsible world power, even during a global crisis that it helped cause,” he wrote. China refused to take responsibility for the pandemic, even launching a conspiracy theory about the U.S. military and sending defective medical equipment around the world.

A second element in Taiwan’s favor is China’s continuously aggressive military attitude toward the island and in the South China Sea. Beijing’s willingness to provoke a conflict “removes the main reason for not recognizing Taiwan as a country, which is to avoid provoking China and maintain peace,” Yip wrote.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/12/2020
By Tang Pei-chun and Emerson Lim

Taipei/Brussels, May 12 (CNA) Taiwan on Tuesday took issue with a statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) the previous day, which said that it had "no mandate" from its members to invite Taiwan to the annual meeting of its decision-making body this year.

Based on precedent, the WHO has two avenues for inviting observers to attend the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) — through a resolution passed by the WHA or an invitation issued by the WHO director-general, Taiwan's foreign ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安）said at a press conference.

She was responding to comments by WHO principal legal officer Steven Solomon, who told reporters Monday that the WHO director-general could not invite Taiwan to join the WHA meeting this year as an observer without the consent of its members.

"To put it crisply, director-generals only extend invitations when it's clear that member states support doing so, that director-generals have a mandate, a basis to do so," Solomon said in an online press conference. "Today however, the situation is not the same. Instead of clear support, there are divergent views among member states and no basis there for — no mandate — for the DG to extend an invitation (to Taiwan)."    [FULL  STORY]

FAKE CLAIMS: The agency cited its efforts to recover money paid to cover supposed emergency caesareans in the US as well as damages from the women involved

Taipei Times
Date: May 13, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) yesterday warned the public that it would seek to recoup National Health Insurance payments and damages in cases of proven insurance fraud, citing as an example women who had claimed reimbursements for supposedly needing emergency cesarean sections while traveling in the US.

Since 2016, the NHIA has tightened its review on claims for NHI reimbursements of medical expenses in other nations, especially in cases of caesarean sections in the US, so the approval rate has fallen from 63 percent in 2016 to 23 percent in 2018, NHIA official Tung Yu-yun (董玉芸) said.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau in 2016 opened an investigation into allegations that a postpartum care service agency had organized “medical tour” packages for Taiwanese women who wanted to give birth in the US, telling them how to claim US citizenship for their children and how to obtain reimbursement — with fake diagnosis certificates — from the NHIA and the insurance companies that provided their travel insurance.

The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on July 26, 2017, indicted agency owner Liu Chao-hsun (柳昭薰) and an employee surnamed Lee (李) on charges of fraud, forgery, inciting others to commit a criminal offense and related charges, and also indicted several women who participated in the scheme.    [FULL  STORY]