How should Taipei’s defense strategy evolve with respect to China? Here are some ideas.

The National Interest
Date: December 1, 2018
By Michael A. Hunzeker Alexander Lanoszka

Amidst the fallout from last week’s “ midterm” elections for city and county-level officials last week, news emerged that Taiwan will stop asking the United States to sell it the F-35. The decision could not have been easy for the Tsai administration, especially because the United States has long refused to sell the F-35 to Taiwan even as it readily sells it to Japan and South Korea. Nevertheless, it was the right move. The F-35’s costs vastly outweigh its benefits. It is provocative, expensive and—most important—ill suited to Taiwan’s defensive needs.

Scrapping the F-35 was an important first step. Still, the Tsai administration can and should do more to challenge longstanding orthodoxies about the best way to deter China.

Taiwan has long organized its defenses around a small inventory of expensive, high-end weapons. The Tsai administration has accelerated such efforts. Taiwan is now actively trying to build a tiny fleet of diesel submarines and seeking to buy ever more M1A2 main battle tanks . Despite a rhetorical commitment to asymmetry, Taiwan seems largely set on deterring Chinese aggression by threatening to go toe-to-toe with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the event of war.    [FULL  STORY]

Stars And Stripes
Date: December 1, 2018 
By: Debby Wu, Bloomberg

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the clash between the U.S. and China may turn out to be a gritty Taiwanese town called Taoyuan.

The former Japanese enclave west of Taipei had long suffered as local companies shifted factories to the mainland to benefit from lower wages and globalizing trade. But with tensions escalating between the world’s two largest economies, Taiwan’s biggest tech firms are now moving some production back home and many are turning to this city of 2 million on the northwestern coast. The trend may have gained a boost after President Donald Trump signaled he’ll likely push ahead with increased tariffs.

Taoyuan doesn’t offer much in the way of glitz. But it does boast an hour’s drive to Taipei, hosts the island’s primary international airport, and overseers who’re aggressive supporters. That’s why it’s a hot destination as the manufacturing powerhouses behind the world’s electronics scour the globe for alternatives. The moves threaten to splinter a decades-old supply chain, in which Taiwanese giants assemble devices out of sprawling Chinese bases that the likes of HP and Dell then slap their labels on.

From iPhone assembler Pegatron Corp. to laptop maker Compal Electronics Inc., they’re now preparing for an end to an arrangement that’s served them well since the 1980s. Along with fellow Apple Inc.-supplier Inventec Corp., the trio are among those adding capacity in Taoyuan, with announcements coming as Washington and Beijing ramp up the rhetoric over trade and tariffs. Others like Quanta Computer Inc. are snapping up or seeking factory land. The city’s population is now the fastest-growing in the country even as U.S.-Chinese tensions dampen the global economy.    [FULL  STORY]

Three Slovenians, and Four Taiwanese are being tried for the unlawful detention of 63 individuals, and fraud operation that was busted in January 2018

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/01
By: Duncan Deaeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The trial of a fraud operation and human trafficking ring, which held 59 known victims, mostly Taiwanese people, against their will, began in Maribor, Slovenia on Nov. 29.

According to Slovenian media, three Slovenians, and four Taiwanese citizens have been charged in the case for “unlawfully detaining at least 63 people” and forcing them to work in a fraud operation, scamming Chinese speakers abroad in to giving them money and financial information.

In January, Croatian and Slovenian police conducted a joint sting operation to break the fraud ring, and release the Taiwanese prisoners being held against their will.

The call center operation began in Slovenia in 2015, with the ringleaders originally luring the victims to the country with promises of a stable legal job to help them pay off various debts.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/01
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan 

Taipei, Dec. 1 (CNA) An exposition that showcased hair, beauty and wellness experiences for women of color was held in Taipei on Saturday to showcase such resources in a country where they are often hard to find.

The H.E.Rtiqutte Affair, a play on words of “her, hair, and etiquette,” was the first of its kind in Taiwan and was organized by international students at Ming Chuan University, where the event was staged.

“We decided to do this because after we have been in Taiwan for a little while, we realize that it’s really difficult to source products that we need in our day-to-day lives,” said Zee Dlamini, a student of Eswatini and an organizer of the event.

The event featured performances, speeches, a full line of makeup, skincare and haircare products, and a masterclass featuring professionals experienced in working with darker skin tones and textured hair.    [FULL  STORY]

‘MANIPULATION’: Many Taiwanese do not know what the ‘1992 consensus’ means, and even within the KMT there are different understandings of it, one researcher said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 02, 2018
By: Chung Li-hua  /  Staff reporter

The return of the so-called “1992 consensus” in political rhetoric after Nov. 24’s

local elections is the result of an attempt by the pan-blue camp to mislead Taiwanese, academics have said.

After the local elections, Kaohsiung mayor-elect Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and Taichung mayor-elect Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have publicly endorsed the “1992 consensus,” making it a popular search term on the Internet, especially in Kaohsiung.

However, a 2016 study published by Academia Sinica showed that although 90 percent of respondents had heard of the “1992 consensus,” only 24.9 percent were aware of its content, compared with 64.3 percent who were not.

The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 30 November, 2018
By: Charlie Storrar

Cell phone footage captured colorful scenes in the night sky over Nangan in Taiwan’s Matsu Islands on Thursday evening. But these sparks are not fireworks but tracer rounds from anti-aircraft machine guns.

The Matsu Islands, like Kinmen further to the south, lie just off the coast of mainland China and are defended by local military garrisons. Every year they conduct regular live-fire tests of their weapons – in this case, Browning .50 caliber machine guns mounted on CM21 armored vehicles.

Such sights are a rarity for visitors to Matsu from Taiwan proper. But local residents have long been accustomed to the exercises, and they spend their evenings as normal, walking and exercising in the park while the tracer fire lights up the night around them.     [FULL  STORY]

Your daily bulletin of Taiwan news, courtesy of ICRT.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/30
By: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT)

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said her administration’s goal of making Taiwan a nuclear-free homeland by 2025 remains unchanged, despite the passage of a referendum opposing the policy.

The statement comes after the Cabinet announced earlier this week that Taiwan will no longer stick to the goal of becoming nuclear-free by 2025.

In her first public comments since the ballot, Tsai said the goal of phasing out nuclear power in Taiwan is part of the Basic Environment Act.

Taiwan would scrap its plans to eliminate nuclear power by 2025. Tsai Ing-wen now says otherwise.
According to Tsai, the passage of a referendum against closing nuclear power facilities by the 2025 deadline does not mean the goal of creating a nuclear-free homeland must be abandoned.    [FULL  STORY]

39-year-old man slipped on Taichung set of car racing film on Nov.16

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/30
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A movie crew member died early Thursday, two weeks

after hitting his head in an accident on the set of pop star Jay Chou’s (周杰倫) racing film project “Nezha” (叱咤風雲).

The incident happened on November 16 in Taichung, where the crew was shooting a scene involving cars racing through the rain, the Liberty Times reported.

A 39-year-old crew member surnamed Wu (吳) slipped on the wet ground and hurt his head. After surgery, he was confined to hospital for observation, but he died on November 29.

Chou instructed the members of the movie team to do all what was necessary and take good care to assist Wu’s family, reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/30
By: Elaine Hou and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Nov. 30 (CNA) Reciprocal visa-free entry between citizens of Taiwan and Palau will take effect on Dec. 1, with visitors from the Pacific ally getting visa-free stays of up to 90 days in Taiwan and vice versa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday.

The reciprocal visa-free privileges were granted based on principles of equality and mutual benefit, the ministry said in a statement.    [FULL  STORY]

BACK BURNER: A Japan relations official confirmed that a platform to discuss trade and investment has been put on hold due to Taiwan’s ban on certain Japanese food imports

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 01, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Japan at a bilateral meeting reiterated its hope that Taiwan could lift an import ban

on food products from five Japanese prefectures, but understands that Taiwanese voiced their collective opposition to the idea in a referendum last week, the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association said yesterday.

Japan said it hoped that Taiwan could lift the ban based on scientific evidence, association deputy secretary-general Lin Ching-hung (林慶鴻) told a news conference at the conclusion of the two-day annual Taiwan-Japan trade and economic meeting in Taipei.

“In response, we told our Japanese counterparts that according to the referendum results, Taiwanese only want Japanese food products that are safe to consume and that the government will handle the matter in accordance with the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法),” Lin said.

An official who attended the meeting said that Japanese representatives also mentioned China’s decision on Wednesday to partially relax its import restrictions on Japanese food products imposed after the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster, by allowing the import of rice produced in Niigata Prefecture, effective immediately.    [FULL  STORY]