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MAC promotes cross-strait exchanges with videos

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-10

The Mainland Affairs Council released a series of short videos on Wednesday to promote cross-strait exchanges in areas such as education, business, and fighting crime.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) held a press conference on Wednesday to announce five new short videos that aim to promote cross-strait exchanges.

The videos cover five different stories and themes. They include the lives of Mainland Chinese students in Taiwan, cross-strait collaboration in fighting telecom fraud, Taiwanese businesspeople in China, Chinese spouses of Taiwanese nationals who have gone into business, and Taiwan-Hong Kong exchanges. The videos all showcase positive interactions between people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

MAC minister Chen Ming-tong said the government welcomes Mainland Chinese students to come to study in Taiwan. Chen said he hopes students from both sides can engage in more exchanges in order to increase mutual understanding. Jake Chen, RTI news.    [SOURCE]

Singapore deports two gunrunners to Taiwan

Suspects were allegedly involved in smuggling 109 guns into Taiwan last week

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/10
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Two Taiwanese gunrunners suspected of involvement in the

Guns seized in Taiwan last week. (By Central News Agency)

smuggling of more than 100 guns last week were deported from Singapore Thursday, one day after their arrest.

The two were named as Liao Wei-tsang (廖緯蒼), 30, an important cadre in a faction of the Bamboo Union organized crime gang, and Tseng Meng-han (曾孟瀚), 22, the Apple Daily reported.

Before the details of the operation were made public, Taiwanese media already spoke of “two mystery guests” on board a China Airlines flight from Singapore to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Thursday afternoon.

The case goes back to last Friday, when police in Sanxia, New Taipei City, found 109 guns and more than 12,000 rounds of ammunition in a container rented by a man they succeeded in arresting.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei selected ‘best leisure destination in Asia’

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/10
By: Edward Tsao and Flor Wang

Los Angeles, May 9 (CNA) Taipei has won a 2018 Leisure Lifestyle Award hosted by Global Traveler magazine as the “best leisure destination in Asia,” according to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Los Angeles.

This is the first time Taipei has topped the annual survey in the magazine — the only monthly publication for business and leisure luxury travelers, TECO said in a press release on Wednesday.

Taipei finished first in the “Best Leisure Destination in Asia” category, beating the Thai island of Phuket into second place and Singapore into third.

Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong came in fourth to sixth, followed by Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Osaka and Bali.    [FULL  STORY]

Cabinet passes Aboriginal justice bill

INJUSTICE: The bill proposes setting up a committee that would probe infringements of Aboriginal rights through coercive measures and encroachments on their territories

Taipei Times
Date: May 11, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a draft act to create an Aboriginal historical justice and land surveying committee to probe past injustices and complete a survey of historical Aboriginal territories.

According to the bill, the proposed committee would probe infringements on Aboriginal rights through law, armed assaults or other coercive measures.

Unlike the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), which deals with injustices the government perpetrated against people from the end of World War II till the end of the Period of National Mobilization against Communist Rebellion, the proposed act would not set limits on the time frame for such cases.

The Council of Indigenous Peoples provided examples of encroachments on Aboriginal rights, including those committed by Dutch and Spanish invaders, the Dutch East India Co, Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga), the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese colonial government, pirates and intruders.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s laws on language are showing China what it means to be a modern, inclusive country

Quartz
Date: May 09, 2018
By: Nikhil Sonnad

All are welcome. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)

Taiwan was once considered an economic miracle. Now economic progress there has slowed to a halt as China, Taiwan’s imposing neighbor, grows bigger by the day.

But in terms of social progress, Taiwan is decades ahead—showing people in China that a modern, multicultural, and tolerant Chinese society is possible.

Consider the difference between Taiwan and China’s language policies. Legislators in Taiwan are preparing to redefine what constitutes a “national language.” If the new definition is enacted, which is likely, Taiwanese—the local variant of the Minnan language of southern China—will receive equal treatment with Mandarin. That would be unthinkable in China, where Mandarin’s status as the sole standard language is absolute.

The Taiwanese language is everywhere in Taiwan. It is spoken at home by over 80% of the population. Would-be politicians feel the need to campaign in Taiwanese in order to win elections. Yet it has not been given the status of a national language. That is in part because the language has endured long periods of inequity relative to Mandarin, even in Taiwan. When the Kuomintang party arrived on the island in the 1940s, fleeing its losing battle with the Chinese communists, it banned the use of Taiwanese in schools and in the media, declaring that Mandarin should be the language of the island.
[FULL  STORY]

National human rights museum set for official dedication

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-09

After six years of planning, Taiwan’s national human rights museum will be officially designated in ceremonies next week at the museum’s two centers.

The Green Island Human Rights Culture Park will be officially dedicated on May 17. The museum’s director, Chen Chun-hong, said the date was chosen as May 17, 1951, was the date that the first group of political prisoners were dispatched to the prison on the small island off Taiwan’s southeast coast. A similar dedication will take place on May 18 at the Jing-Mei Human Rights Memorial and Culture Park in Taipei. The two sites were both places where political prisoners were imprisoned during the “White Terror” era when the former Kuomintang government ruled Taiwan under martial law.    [FULL  STORY]

New migrants on Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands celebrate with NIA

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/09
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On May 1, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) invited new

New immigrants in Kinmen (Photo courtesy of NIA).

migrants and their families, foreign laborers and foreign teachers on the island of Kinmen close to China to a colorful party.

Many participants showed up wearing traditional dresses and costumes from their native country, while also bringing typical foods with them they had prepared at home first.

The party also featured top visitors from the government, including Interior Minister Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮), Kinmen County Magistrate Chen Fu-hai (陳福海), Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), Straits Exchange Foundation Chairwoman Chang Hsiao-yueh (張小月), and NIA Director-General Jeff J. Yang (楊家駿), as well as several lawmakers, who expressed their gratitude for the contributions of the guests to the local community.

The dinner comprised typical dishes from around East Asia, from Vietnamese spring rolls and Xiamen oyster omelets to desserts from Cambodia.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan bishops on ad limina visit to Vatican City

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/09
By: Huang Ya-shih and Evelyn Kao

Vatican City, May 9 (CNA) A delegation of seven Taiwanese bishops arrived in Rome

Photo courtesy of Embassy of the Republic of China (TAIWAN) to the Holy See

Tuesday on their way to Vatican City for an ad limina visit, which involves visiting the tombs of the apostles and reporting on work in their dioceses to the Pope.

Republic of China (Taiwan) Ambassador to the Holy See Matthew Lee (李世明) greeted the delegation at the airport and talked briefly with the bishops before they headed to the Vatican.

The seven bishops have not been to the Vatican for 10 years and this is their first ad limina visit during the tenure of Pope Francis who took office in March 2013, Lee said.

While in the Vatican, they will visit several departments of the Roman Curia and receive an audience with the Pope, according to Lee.    [FULL  STORY]

US and EU support Taiwan’s WHA bid

FRIEND IN NEED: Taiwan has garnered wider support from allies to attend this year’s meeting, an official said, with Washington expressing dismay at Chinese obstruction

Taipei Times
Date: May 10, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter, with CNA

The US and the EU voiced their support for Taiwan’s attendance at this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), following China’s move to block Taipei at the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.

The US Department of State on Tuesday issued a statement saying it strongly supports Taiwan’s participation as an observer in the WHA, citing Taiwan’s commitment to global health security, and the important contributions it has made to public health and development.

“We are greatly dismayed that China has once again blocked Taiwan from receiving an invitation to attend [the WHA]. We will continue to urge the WHO to extend an invitation to Taiwan to attend this year’s WHA as an observer,” the statement said.

“The US believes that Taiwan should not be excluded from these critical discussions,” it added.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan blames China for absence from U.N. health meeting

Reuters
Date: May 8, 2018
By: Jess Macy Yu

TAIPEI (Reuters) – China is disregarding the health of the people of Taiwan by blocking

A man walks past a row of Taiwan’s national flags in Taipei, October 14, 2011. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

the island’s participation in an annual U.N. health meeting later this month, the Taiwan government said.

Taiwan’s China policy-making body said late on Monday the exclusion of Taiwan from the World Health Assembly (WHA) for a second consecutive year showed Beijing’s lack of will to improve relations.

“China’s use of its one-sided political stance, and persistence in suppressing and blocking our participation in the WHA, disregards Taiwan people’s health safety rights,” the island’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.

“Our government expresses its strong condemnation at this unreasonable action,” the council said ahead of the May 21-26 WHA meeting in Geneva.

Taiwan is one of China’s most sensitive issues. The island is claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory and China has never renounced the use of force to bring under Chinese control what it considers to be a wayward province.    [FULL  STORY]