BASEBALL THEME: Several gruesome murders this year accurately reflect the nation’s morale under Tsai Ing-wen, the KMT chairman said at the party’s National Congress

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 20, 2018
By: Shih Hsiao-kuang  /  Staff reporter

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) at its national congress in New

Taipei City yesterday vowed to “hit a home run” in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections.

KMT Chairman Wu Duen-yih (吳敦義), and former party chairs including former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former Taipei mayor Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and former legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) attended the convention, which was held to unite party members and boost the party’s momentum at the start of the campaign season.

Baseball was the theme of the convention, with Wu as the “main coach” and candidates for mayoral and commissioner seats as baseball players. Wu and the candidates posed as if they were ready to swing their bats to “hit a home run” and threw a baseball to symbolize striking out the opponent.

Wu in an address summed up the nation’s accomplishments during Ma’s presidency.    [FULL  STORY]

The Japan Times 
Date: Aug 18, 2018

TAIPEI – Japan’s de facto embassy in Taiwan has requested the removal of a statue in Tainan symbolizing the “comfort women,” officials said Friday.

The Taipei office of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association asked officials of the Kuomintang, Taiwan’s biggest opposition party, to take “appropriate” action over the statue, which was installed with the party’s support, association officials said.

The term comfort women refers to the masses of girls and women, many of them Korean, who were forced to provide sex for Imperial Japanese troops before and during World War II.

Taipei office head Mikio Numata, Japan’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan, met on Wednesday with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who attended the statue’s unveiling ceremony on Tuesday, and with Kuomintang chief Wu Den-yih on Thursday.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s tour of the Americas, with stopovers in Los Angeles and Houston, is evidence that however diplomatically isolated Taipei may appear to be, it “does not stand alone”

South China Morning Post
Date: 18 AUG 2018
By: Cary Huang

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s whirlwind diplomatic tour of the Americas is a test of both her leadership and the island’s resilience in the face of stifling pressure from Beijing. Taiwan has suffered increasing diplomatic isolation under Tsai’s stewardship, now halfway through a four-year term. The island republic has lost four diplomatic allies since Tsai came into office two years ago – leaving just 18 countries with which it has official ties, most of them clustered in Latin America, the South Pacific and the Caribbean.

Cross-strait relations have deteriorated since Tsai’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party won power. Beijing has frozen all contact and ramped up its campaign to assert its sovereignty.

It is trying to exclude Taiwan from as many international forums as it can and has ordered foreign companies to refer to Taiwan as being part of China.    [FULL  STORY]

Suspect stole half a million NT dollars from Nantou County post office on Friday

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/18
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A man suspected of having robbed

NT$500,000 (US$16,000) from a post office in Nantou County Friday was apprehended at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport just before boarding a flight to China Saturday.

A masked man armed with a gun entered the Qingshui Post Office in the town of Lugu Friday afternoon, threw a bag on the counter and ordered staff to fill it with money, the Central News Agency reported.

Twenty seconds later, the man walked out of the post office with NT$500,000, police said. However, thanks to surveillance cameras in the area, their attention soon focused on a 38-year-old resident of Nantou City named Chou (周).

He used an underground financial broker to wire NT$450,000 out of the country, a sign that he was prepared to flee Taiwan, reports said.

Police showed up at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Saturday morning and managed to intercept Chou just before he was boarding a flight to Xiamen in China, reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/18
By: Yeh Su-ping and Hsu Hsiao-ling

Belize City, Aug. 17 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who was

on the sixth day of her nine-day overseas trip, promised to deepen Taiwan’s cooperation with its Central American ally Belize in various fields, including education, economy, agriculture and infrastructure when speaking at the National Assembly on Friday.

In her address, Tsai announced that Taiwan will increase the number of Taiwan scholarship students from Belize and will invite young Belizeans for short-term vocational training programs in Taiwan.

For those who are not able to go to Taiwan, the country will work with Belize’s Institute for Technical, Vocational and Educational Training to improve the quality of local vocational education for the younger generation in Belize so that they will be better prepared for the job market, Tsai said.

In terms of the economy, President Tsai mentioned a delegation of Taiwan’s largest cocoa and coffee purchasers who visited Belize earlier this year. She promised to keep encouraging more delegations from Taiwan’s business sector to visit the Central American country and develop further trade relationships with the cocoa and coffee industries in Belize.    [FULL  STORY]

RESULTS-BASED FRIENDSHIP: Speaking in Belize, the president said that cooperation in the fields of education, economy, agriculture and infrastructure would be reinforced

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 19, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is slated to visit NASA’s Johnson

Space Center in Houston, Texas, today — a visit of political significance, as it would be the first time a president from Taiwan has entered a US federal building in their official capacity after US President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act in March.

The Taiwan Travel Act allows high-level US officials to visit Taiwan and vice versa, breaking from previous US policy that did not permit bilateral visits by Cabinet-level ministers, but allowed Taiwanese presidents to transit through US cities en route to other countries.

Tsai arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday last week en route to Paraguay and Belize, two of Taiwan’s 18 diplomatic allies. On her return trip, she arrived in Houston yesterday for a 27-hour transit.

The president is to return to Taiwan late tomorrow.

Speaking to reporters accompanying her on the trip, Tsai on Friday said that Washington followed its four principles of providing travelers “safety, comfort, convenience and dignity,” as it has done in the past.
[FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: AUGUST 17, 2018
By: Reuters Staff

BEIJING (Reuters) – Police in China have detained a man who asked on social media what law prevented anyone calling self-ruled Taiwan a country, questioning a fundamental principle of China’s sovereignty.

Taiwan is China’s most sensitive diplomatic and political issue.

Beijing views the democratic island as merely a wayward province and it has stepped up a campaign against the island as it tries to assert Chinese sovereignty.

Police in the northeastern city of Maanshan said an 18-year-old unemployed man, identified by the family name Yang, had used his Weibo social media account to post questions on a police Weibo including: “What law says you can’t call Taiwan a country?”.

The young man also wrote that Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe was his “real father”, police said in a statement, adding that what he wrote was against the law and “profaned the people’s feelings”.    [FULL  STORY]

 

China will increase its demands on other countries: Stanton

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director

William Stanton expressed anger Friday about China’s bullying of Taiwan, warning that as Beijing’s power increased, it would more and more demand other countries follow its views.

After President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) visited a Taiwanese-owned 85 C coffee shop during her stopover in the United States earlier this week, Chinese netizens accused the company of favoring Taiwan Independence, which in turn led to it issuing a statement pledging support for China’s policies.

Stanton described Tsai’s visit to the store and her receiving a gift bag there as purely an act of politeness, the Central News Agency reported.
[FULL  STORY]