Hot Air
Date: October 20, 2020
By: John Sexton

The island nation of Fiji lies off the east coast of Australia nearly 5,000 miles from China and Taiwan. Earlier this month a beach resort in Fiji’s capital of Suva became the scene of a fistfight between two “diplomats” from China and Taiwanese officials. Here’s what happened:

China has led a concerted effort in recent years to undercut Taiwan’s influence on the global stage, including in the Pacific. As part of that campaign, Beijing has poached several allies of Taiwan in the region, despite objections from the United States and other governments.

Those tensions spilled over at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva on Oct. 8, when Taiwan hosted a reception to celebrate its national day before an audience of Fijian officials, scholars and nonprofit workers. (Fiji does not have official relations with Taipei.)

According to Taiwan’s foreign ministry, a pair of Chinese diplomats showed up at the reception uninvited and sought to photograph guests. Beijing has deployed such tactics — turning up at events, taking photographs of people — in recent years to intimidate its rivals and those who support them.

When Taiwanese officials tried to block the Chinese diplomats, the visitors turned violent, according to the ministry. They beat a Taiwanese official so severely that the official was hospitalized, the ministry said.

This is what China refers to as “wolf warrior” diplomacy, based on a 2015 Chinese action film called Wolf Warrior which is sort of a Chinese version of Rambo. In this case, they send spies to the event to openly take pictures of everyone who is there, probably trying to intimidate them. When they are asked to leave, they start throwing punches.    [FULL  STORY]

Victim robbed right after withdrawing NT$400,000 from CTBC Bank in Taipei

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/10/20
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A customer at a bank in the heart of Taipei was robbed of NT$400,000 (US$14,000) in cash in broad daylight on Tuesday (Oct. 20).

At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, a CTBC Bank customer at the Dongmen branch on Xinyi Road, Section 2 withdrew NT$400,000 from the bank. However, the customer was assailed by a robber who made off with the cash and escaped via Dongmen MRT station, reported Liberty Times.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 10/20/2020
By Su Ssu-yun, Wen Kuei-hsiang
and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, Oct. 20 (CNA) Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) on Tuesday invited the chairman of Chung T'ien Television (CTiTV) parent company Want Want Holdings to testify at a controversial hearing next week on the renewal of the station's broadcast license.

In September, the commission voted to hold an unprecedented public hearing on Oct. 26 to review a license renewal request submitted by CTiTV, a cable news network that is frequently critical of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The move was assailed by critics as proof that the government is looking to close the station, effectively threatening Taiwan's media freedom, while supporters argue that the station's alleged ties to the government in China need to be fully investigated.

In a statement on Tuesday, the NCC invited Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), founder and chairman of the Want Want Holdings conglomerate that owns CTiTV, to voluntarily attend the hearing, based on his extensive knowledge of the company's operations and strategy.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 19 October, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

Forty-four Taiwanese universities abide by the government’s current cross-strait policy, which says that schools should not sign a One-China Policy agreement. That was the word from Education Minister Pan Wen-chung, who was speaking at the legislature on Monday.

The One-China Policy says that there is only one sovereign state representing China. Beijing uses what it calls a “One-China Principle” to claim Taiwan as part of Chinese territory. 

Three years ago, 72 public and private universities in Taiwan were revealed to have signed agreements that they would abide by the One-China Policy. They faced criticism from both the government and civic groups. 

DPP Legislator Huang Kuo-shu said Monday that over 20,000 students from China studied in Taiwan in 2018 and 2019. He asked the education minister if it was possible that universities were secretly signing pacts with China, while submitting a different set of documents to the education ministry.    [FULL  STORY]

The October 1 gathering brought together Uyghurs, Mongolians, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and their supporters.

The Diplomat
Date: October 19, 2020
By: Wilder Alejandro Sanchez

Protests took place in major cities across the world on October 1 – China’s National Day – to highlight the repressive activities of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against various communities that live under its rule. I covered the protests that took place in New York City as part of the “Global Day of Action,” where roughly 150 people gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters to make their voices heard.

Hosted by movements like Students for a Free Tibet, Keep Taiwan Free, the World Uyghur Congress, and the Southern Mongolia Congress, the peaceful event brought together Uyghurs, Mongolians, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and their supporters. Dozens of banners were clearly visible to demonstrate to passing pedestrians that this was a gathering of various nationalities that had one common objective: to highlight the Chinese government’s repressive strategies and demand change. “Down, down CCP” (the Chinese Communist Party), “Free Tibet,” “Free Hong Kong” were some of the chants that could be clearly heard. Similarly, banners featured slogans like “Resist” and “Just say ‘No’ to the Chinese Communist Party,” and also displayed support for the “Independence of East Turkestan” (also known as Xinjiang). One banner also demanded that the Chinese government must be held accountable for the “genocide” that Beijing is carrying out against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and other groups in Xinjiang.

One additional banner read “Falun Dafa is Good.” More commonly known as Falun Gong, this religious movement promotes meditation and slow-moving exercises. Due to its popularity among millions of Chinese citizens and its spiritual teachings, Beijing has cracked down on the movement, banning it as a cult.

The NYC event also had a number of speakers that discussed the Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia; the repressive activities against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong; and threats against Taiwan.    [FULL STORY]

New hypersonic missiles could evade Taiwan's Patriot batteries during future invasion

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/10/19
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — China has reportedly deployed new hypersonic missiles across from Taiwan as it marshals forces in preparation for a future invasion.

On Sunday (Oct. 18), the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba Group, cited an anonymous military source as saying that China's most advanced hypersonic missile, the DF-17, is being deployed to People's Liberation Army (PLA) bases in the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, which sit right across from Taiwan. The deployment of the missiles is part of a PLA pattern of a beefing up of its forces along the coast of China in what some analysts are saying are preparations for an invasion of Taiwan.

According to the unnamed source, "The DF-17 hypersonic missile will gradually replace the old DF-11s and DF-15s that were deployed in the southeast region for decades." The source added that, “The new missile has a longer range and is able to hit targets more accurately.”

The DF-17 is a solid-fueled road-mobile medium-range ballistic missile that delivers a hypersonic glide vehicle with a range of 2,500 kilometers. It is feared that Taiwan’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) surface-to-air missile system may have difficulty intercepting the missile due to its ability to suddenly change direction, possibly at speeds of between Mach 5 and 10.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 10/19/2020 09:11 PM
By: Liu Chiang-pang and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Oct. 19 (CNA) The management of the reservoir that supplies the Greater Taipei area with most of its water has given assurances that there will be enough water to last until at least the end of January 2021 after more than a week of rain boosted water levels.

As of 4 p.m. Monday, the water level at Feitsui Reservoir in New Taipei had risen to 64.8 percent of its capacity, from 48 percent on Oct. 6, the lowest at the same point in time in 17 years, the Taipei Feitsui Reservoir Administration said in a statement Monday.

Northeasterly winds have brought rainfall to the reservoir and catchment area since Oct. 8, and the administration carried out cloud seeding on Oct. 16 to further boost precipitation in the area, the statement said.

While the rain in recent days has eased fears of water shortages in northern Taiwan, however, the water supply in parts of central and southern Taiwan remains low, according to the Water Resources Agency (WRA).

The unusually low water levels are the result of Taiwan not experiencing a typhoon during this year's typhoon season, which typically runs from May to October, for the first time since 1964.
[FULL  STORY]

LIFELONG STRUGGLE: The greatest obstacle to Taiwan’s normalization is the ROC Constitution, Taiwan New Constitution Foundation chairman Koo Kwang-ming said

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 20, 2020
By: Chen Yu-fu and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Taiwan New Constitution Foundation yesterday said it would call for constitutional interpretations and is considering submitting other referendum proposals, following the rejection on Friday of its two referendum proposals on constitutional reform.

The Central Election Commission rejected the proposals without clarifying its reasoning, foundation chairman Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) told a news conference in Taipei.

“The greatest obstacle to the nation’s normalization and development is the Republic of China [ROC] Constitution,” he said, adding that democracies use referendums, not revolutions, to solve problems.

The 95-year-old said he has spent a half-century fighting for Taiwan, with the biggest changes coming over the past few decades in the wake of democratization.    [FULL  STORY]

realcleardefense.com
Date: October 17, 2020
By: Thomas J. Shattuck1

Background:  One of the key national security priorities of the People’s Republic of China is to force Taiwan into unification. Part of that strategy is to limit Taiwan’s ability to participate fully in the international community, specifically in international organizations in which Taiwan is not a full member[1]. Such pressure would be removed upon China-Taiwan unification.

Significance:  In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the full participation and cooperation of the entire international community is needed to understand best practices in limiting the spread of the virus. The pandemic has shown the importance of public and global health for a country’s national security. Taiwan’s exclusion from the May 2020 United Nations (UN) World Health Assembly—after dual campaigns by major international players in support of Taiwan’s observership bid and by China to keep Taiwan out—demonstrates the danger and limitations of excluding certain states based on their geopolitical situation[2]. Taiwan is prevented from learning important information or receiving key data in a timely fashion. Also, it is more difficult for Taiwan to share its expertise in stopping the virus’ spread, something that Taipei has succeeded at doing despite its limitations[3]. The spread of viruses endangers the entire world, and political maneuvering by Beijing has damaged the global response effort.

Option #1:  Taipei works with like-mind/ed nations, particularly the United States, to develop a new, non-UN-membership-based international entity, initially focused on health issues with a plan for expansion into other areas.

Risk:  There are/ two primary risks to such an endeavor. The first risk is the possibility that Beijing will pressure nations into not participating. By threatening various economic or political repercussions, leaders in China have been able to stop Taiwan from expanding its international participation. Such a campaign would likely occur in light of any effort by Taipei to work around current Beijing-imposed limitations. If such a new entity does not receive enough international buy-in, then Taipei risks getting embarrassed for failing to garner support. Second, Beijing would likely direct even greater backlash at Taipei for attempting to challenge it internationally. This could include more assertive military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.    [FULL  STORY]