Radio Taiwan International
Date: 11 May, 2020
By: Leslie Liao\
A vote to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-Yu will take place on June 6
A vote to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu will take place on June 6. In the leadup to the vote, both his supporters and his opponents are hard at work trying to rally people to their cause.
There’s a battle underway in the southern city of Kaohsiung. A fight to remove the city’s mayor, Han Kuo-yu, has mobilized both sides to action. A recall vote is scheduled for June 6. With less than a month to go, pro-Han ads featuring city residents who support the mayor have begun popping up.
An opposition party city councilor, from the DPP, says that the campaign is backed by Han’s party, the KMT. He says the ads are dishonest and mislead the public. But the KMT says that there’s no reason why they can’t help publicize an event that’s legal.
On the other side of the vote, the anti-Han camp is taking to the streets to pass out flyers. [FULL STORY]
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China has heavily criticised New Zealand's support of Taiwan joining the World Health Organisation, saying the "erroneous remarks" could damage relations between the countries.
But New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters says he's not concerned an escalating war of words will damage relations, and he doesn't regret telling the Chinese ambassador she needed to "listen to her master".
China foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lihan told a press conference on Monday that China "deplores and opposes" New Zealand's position, and "no one should entertain any illusion when it comes to matters concerning China's core interests". [FULL STORY]
If China were to successfully occupy Taiwan, it would no longer merely be a country on the Asian continent. Such a victory would cement its claim as a Pacific military superpower.
The takeover would extend China's exclusive economic zone an additional 200 nautical miles east of Taiwan into the Pacific Ocean. China could then assert the related rights in the region, and Taiwan would become the home of China’s easternmost air and naval bases.
This would be a domain never before possessed by China throughout its history. The Qing Dynasty (1636-1911) never controlled land beyond the adjacent Yellow, East China, and South China Seas.
[A conquest of Taiwan] would surely constitute a breach in the Indo-Pacific framework promoted by the U.S. and Japan, and the situation in the region would change dramatically. [FULL STORY]
CECC advisor Chang Shan-chwen / Photo courtesy of the CECC
Taipei, May 11 (CNA) A seventh person has died of COVID-19 in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced Monday, but no new cases of the disease were reported.
The deceased, a man in his 40s who died Sunday, had been on prolonged cardiac and respiratory support in an undisclosed hospital and eventually developed septic shock and multiple organ failure, CECC advisor Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said.
The patient had been in the United States to visit family, according to some local media reports, and after he returned to Taiwan he developed symptoms typical of the disease on March 19.
He then went to see a doctor on March 21 and tested positive for COVID-19 on March 24, according to the CECC. [FULL STORY]
CENTER OF PATH: Experts said that an eclipse of this kind, where the sun’s corona is put on full display, would be visible from Pingtung County in another 50 years
Taipei Times
Date: May 12, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA
Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui, top right, and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, top left, attend a news conference in Taipei yesterday to promote activities for an annular solar eclipse on June 21. Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Eclipse events are planned in Chiayi City next month, as it is among the cities across Asia that lie almost in the center of the path where the moon will cast its shadow.
The city is among those in which people can observe the entire annular solar eclipse, Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠) said yesterday.
At an event in Taipei to promote eclipse activities, Huang invited members of the public to visit Chiayi for the June 21 astronomical phenomenon and to enjoy the area’s distinctive food, such as turkey rice and fish head casserole.
There are to be lectures on astronomy at Beisianhu Park, the main venue of the city-wide events, on June 20 and 21, the Chiayi City Government said. [FULL STORY]
WITH MUCH INTERNATIONAL praise of Taiwan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, in avoiding expansive lockdown measures and avoiding domestic transmission of the coronavirus, a major factor in Taiwan’s successes has been the ability of the government and society to communicate information about measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. As such, examining the aesthetics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwanese society may be instructive.
Firstly, the Taiwanese government’s messaging has aimed to spread information about COVID-19 prevention measures in a cutesy, aestheticized form. This would be for the sake of downplaying any intrusive or disruptive aspects of COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures, in order to try and induce members of the public into complying with them.
For example, as has been widely noted, the Centers for Disease Control has taken to using images of a Shiba Inu mascot, Zongchai, in order to distribute information about the COVID-19 pandemic. While Zongchai has proved highly popular among young people, images of Zongchai have also been deliberately released in the format of “senior images”, in order to allow for information about COVID-19 to be disseminated in a form that the elderly can easily understand. On the whole, images of Zongchai, which depict Zongchai as a mischievous character, actually tend to be rather text-heavy.
An unusual effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden popularity of Minister of Health Chen Shih-chung. Chen has been praised for his work ethic, in working over 25 continuous hours at some points during the pandemic, and his daily press conferences to provide updates about the pandemic. [FULL STORY]
If any government is to be credited with spectacular success in containing Covid-19, Taiwan has to be high up on that list. Despite having significant people-to-people and business connections with China and being in geographical proximity to Wuhan, Taiwan has been able to contain the spread of the epidemic to just 440 cases with six deaths. Plus, there has been no total lockdown of Taiwanese economy and society.
Yet Taiwan is kept out of WHO due to pressure from China, which has contributed to WHO’s reputation as being China-centric. WHO is badly in need of reform, which must include a recognition that Covid-19 is a global pandemic that can only be tackled through genuine cooperation between all international stakeholders. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/10
By: Central News Agency
(CNA photo)
A civic group said Sunday that parents in Taiwan are making the difficult choice of giving up their jobs because they have no one to help take care of their babies, and this is also deterring couples from having children.
Meanwhile, childcare centers are overcrowded, accepting more than 90 children per day in some cases, as there are no government restrictions in that regard, according to the Childcare Policy Alliance (CPA), a group that is advocating for a national childcare policy.
These problems stem from the shortage of in-home childminders, who number about 26,000 nationwide and are mostly over the age of 50, the CPA said, citing its own data.
"Home-based nannies are not only aging but are in shortage," CPA coordinator Liu Yu-hsiu (劉毓秀) said at a Mother's Day press conference. [FULL STORY]
Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/10/2020
By: Shen Ming-ta and Chiang Yi-ching
The restaurant Aegis in Taipei / CNA file photo
Taipei, May 10 (CNA) A group of Hong Kongers seeking political asylum in Taiwan apologized to their mothers Sunday for not being with them on Mother's Day and shared their handwritten letters to their moms on a Facebook page.
The letters were posted on the Facebook page of the Taipei restaurant Aegis, which offers work opportunities to Hong Kongers who have fled to Taiwan for fear of prosecution.
"Happy Mother's Day," one letter read. "Please forgive me for not being in Hong Kong, and for making you scared (for me). Please forgive me for not being able to give you a complete Mother's Day."
In another letter, a Hong Konger named Silver wrote, "This is the first Mother's Day I am not spending by your side, and I am sorry." [FULL STORY]
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT: ’Ordering the businesses to suspend operations was easy, but no one wants to take the responsibility for reopening them,’ the mayor said
Taipei Times
Date: May 11, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je speaks to reporters on the sidelines of an event held at the Sung Shan Tsu Huei Temple in Taipei yesterday. Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) instruction that local governments can decide whether hostess clubs and dance halls can reopen is a typical example of the central government’s unwillingness to take responsibility, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko made the remark in response to media queries on the sidelines of a blessing ceremony held at Taipei’s Sung Shan Tsu Huei Temple (松山慈惠堂) yesterday morning.
The CECC on April 9 ordered all hostess clubs and dance halls to suspend operations after a case of locally transmitted COVID-19 involving a hostess in northern Taiwan was confirmed the day before.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, on Friday said that local governments should assess whether businesses temporarily suspended due to disease prevention conform to disease prevention and safety requirements before giving them the green light to reopen. [FULL STORY]
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