Does it matter?

The National Interest
Date: October 5, 2019  
By: David Axe

Key point: China's air force is far larger and advanced than Taiwan's.

Nearly a decade after first requesting them, the Taiwanese air force finally could get 66 new F-16 fighters to begin replacing some of its older fighter aircraft.

But the $8-billion fighter-acquisition, which the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump approved over strong objections from China, likely will do little to alter the overall balance of power across the Taiwan Strait.

China possesses hundreds of more modern fighters than Taiwan does. Sixty-six F-16s won’t change that. And Taipei already has begun to revamp its defensive strategy to de-emphasize the importance of conventional major weapons systems such as F-16s.

To counter China’s roughly 1,500 fighters, Taipei possesses around 400 fighters of its own including aging F-5s and Mirage 2000s, locally-made F-CK-1s and the survivors of 150 F-16As and Bs that the island country bought from the United States in 1992. In 2001 the Taiwanese government asked for 66 F-16Cs and Ds.    [FULL  STORY]

Canadian English cram school teacher busted for growing pot in Taoyuan, handed reduced sentence for being 'conscientious'

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/10/05
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A Canadian cram school teacher who teaches English and was arrested for growing marijuana at his home in northern Taiwan has been given a reduced sentence for being a "conscientious" teacher.

On Jan. 30, the teacher, surnamed Lee (李), 52, was arrested at his home in Taoyuan City's Longtan District, where police found 163 marijuana plants, 893 grams of dry cannabis, and related drug growing paraphernalia. Although the court considered Lee's drug-growing operation illegal, he was handed a commuted sentence of two years because his students, parents, and colleagues said he had a conscientious attitude and "valued teaching over making money."

According to the police investigation, Lee has lived in Taiwan for 10 years and spent many of those years living and teaching in Taoyuan. Lee claimed that because cannabis was legal in Canada, where it was formally legalized in 2018, he thought the same was true in Taiwan.

He claimed that in 2018, he ordered seeds, insecticides, and gardening tools on overseas websites. He said he then installed water pipes, electricity, plant growing racks, lights, and sprinklers, with his first harvest coming within four months.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/10/05
By: Chi Jo-yao and Wang Chao-yu

Taipei, Oct. 5 (CNA) The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) cleaned up the coast of Wazihwei (挖子尾) Nature Reserve in New Taipei on Saturday to make a statement about marine plastic pollution, the EETO said.

A total of 248 volunteers, including the staff and family members of the EPA, the EETO, and European Union member state offices, and New Taipei residents cleaned up 437.6 kilograms of trash and 369.2 kg of recyclable waste, according to the EETO's Facebook post.

The participants used the trash collected to form the shape of a gigantic sea turtle on the beach of Wazihwei to raise public awareness of the devastating effects of plastic waste on marine ecology, the EETO said.

"Cleaning beaches has an instant positive result, but we need to improve the system to combat marine pollution," EETO chief Filip Grzegorzewski said.    [FULL  STORY]

NANMEN MOVE: With the 10-story building to be torn down and rebuilt, vedors at the Nanmen Market in Taipei are to move to a temporary site on Hangzhou S Road

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 06, 2019
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Taipei’s Nanmen Market (南門市場) was crowded yesterday ahead of its closure for demolition, with

vendors to use a temporary site.

Construction is to begin after its last day today at the market, which has been at its current location for 38 years, after its beginnings as the Chitose Market (千歲市場) outside the city’s South Gate in the Japanese colonial period.

It was expanded and renamed in 1945, and in 1981 moved into the 10-story building that is to be torn down.

It is known for its food vendors, who sell pastries, glutinous rice products and ready-to-eat food, as well as dry goods. It is a popular shopping destination in the run-up to the Lunar New Year.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 04 October, 2019
By: Shirley Lin

The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Taipei has reiterated its call for Taiwan to lift the ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures.

Taiwan put the ban in place after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster amid concerns over radiation.
[FULL  STORY]

Looking to regional neighbors for closer trade relationships is bearing fruit

Nikkei Asian Review
Date: October 4, 2019
By: Humphrey Hawksley

Long menaced by its larger neighbor, Taiwan's efforts to shift away from its reliance on China by

increasing trade instead with other regional partners are beginning to pay both economic and political dividends.

Known as the New Southbound Policy, the government of President Tsai Ing-wen is encouraging and subsidizing Taiwanese companies to move out of China and set up operations throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Since Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party came to office in 2016 on a more anti-China platform, relations between the two countries have become frosty. In its attempts to isolate Taiwan, China has used military exercises, restrictions on tourism and persuasion — of one kind or another — of Taipei's allies to end diplomatic recognition in favor of Beijing.

Taiwan has responded by forging closer relationships with governments in the area and now sees itself as a key contributor to the U.S.-led policy to secure a "free and open Indo-Pacific."
[FULL  STORY]

Legislators say robots can save firefighters' lives

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/10/04
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – After the deaths of two young firefighters at an illegal factory, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Friday (October 4) recommended the use of robots to help out in dangerous situations.

Two firefighters in their early thirties, one about to marry and the other leaving behind an infant and a wife pregnant with twins, died inside a burning factory in Taichung which allegedly turned out to be illegal. They shouldn’t have been sent inside the sheet metal structure in the first place because there were no people inside who needed saving, reports said.

Responding to questioning and suggestions from lawmakers, Su said that robots should be used as much as possible where they were practical.

Legislators suggested that as Taiwan had an advanced electronics industry, it could profit from the development of artificial intelligence and robotics to design suitable robots which could save firefighters’ lives, the Central News Agency reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/10/04
By: Lin Yu-li and Elizabeth Hsu

Berlin, Oct. 4 (CNA) A petition launched in Germany to urge that country to e6stablish diplomatic relations with Taiwan has received enough signatures to go to the parliament for debate.

As of Friday morning, the online petition had been signed by more than 53,000 people, which pushed it past the threshold of 50,000 that was required by Oct. 10 in order for it to be put on the agenda of the Bundestag, according to the parliament's website.

Initiated by someone called Michael Kreuzberg, the petition was submitted to the parliament on May 31 and posted online Sept. 11 to solicit signatures, according to sources close to the Bundestag.

"Since 1949 there has been a second China, namely the Republic of China, or Taiwan," the petition states, calling on the German government to establish formal ties with Taiwan.

NO BREACH: Environmentalists said the practice of puncturing the mouth and a gill to tie fish is a painful process that prolongs suffering for up to 12 hours

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 05, 2019
By: Wu Hsin-tien and Dennis Xie  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Fish tethering — live fish being bound in a “U” shape to keep them fresh — causes unnecessary pain

and poses a food safety threat, animal right groups said yesterday.

Asian sea bass, also known as barramundi, make up 70 percent of farmed sea bass in Taiwan, with information from the Fisheries Agency showing that about 10.35 million of them were sold last year.

The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan estimated that 3.45 million tethered Asian sea bass were sold last year.

Vendors tether the fish by puncturing the mouth and a gill and tying red string in the holes that loops around the tail, a painful process that prolongs the time they can survive out of water by eight to 12 hours before they die in terror, the group said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 03 October, 2019
By: Paula Chao

The foreign ministry says Taiwan thanks the US for its support in the face of Chinese pressure.

The ministry was responding to comments by Pentagon official Randall Schriver on Tuesday. In a keynote speech at a symposium on China’s role in the world, Schrive said that the US government is willing to help Taiwan cope with pressure from China.

Schriver is set to visit China next week. He said the US government’s stance has long been clear and consistent: it will reiterate its policy and its concerns if Beijing raises issues about Taiwan.  
[FULL  STORY]