Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-20

The head of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Chen Ming-tong, says the government

supports exchanges between cities in Taiwan and China. The MAC is the main government agency that charts China policy.

Chen was speaking at the Legislature Tuesday amid concerns about whether this year’s Taipei-Shanghai Forum will go ahead.

This year’s forum is scheduled to take place in Taipei. However, the MAC has blocked Lee Wen-hui of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office from entering Taiwan, preventing him from attending. Lee directs the office’s Shanghai branch.

Chen said the MAC is willing to help the Taipei city government with the resulting difficulties.    [SOURCE]

Xi’s warns that attempts to ‘split’ China will be ‘punished by history’.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/20
By: David Green

China’s President Xi Jinping ratcheted up tensions over Taiwan Tuesday (March 20) with a speech to the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing that warned that any scheme to “split” China would be “punished by history.”

Xi’s comments came as part of a speech that underlined the Communist Party leader’s grip on power following his successful bid to change the country’s constitution and abolish term limits on the offices of president, potentially paving the way for him to rule for life.

“All acts and schemes to split China are doomed to failure and will be condemned by the people and punished by history,” Xi said in an address to the NPC’s closing session, adding that the Chinese people have the will, confidence and ability to defeat attempts to split the country.    [FULL  STORY]

The trio was caught at Hakodate airport in Nov. last year with 10.5 kilograms of gold hidden inside their bras; they were arrested on Feb. 28

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/20
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Japanese media outlets have reported that three Taiwanese

women have been arrested at the airport in Hakodate, Hokkaido for attempting to illegally smuggle gold into the country.

According to news reports, on March 19 Japanese customs bureau announced that three women from Taiwan were placed in custody and are charged with violating the customs act attempting to smuggle gold inside the pockets of their bras.

The women, two in their late 40s, and one only 20, were caught on Nov. 11, 2017 at Hakodate airport with roughly 10.5 kilograms of gold bullion shaped into bowls and hidden inside their bras.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/20
By: Wang Shu-fen and William Yen

Taipei, March 20 (CNA) Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) Corporation suspended service

for 88 minutes, according to THSR, following a magnitude 5.2 earthquake that shook southern Taiwan Tuesday.

THSR explained that the suspension of service was undertaken after a reading of 207 Gals, a unit used to measure the acceleration of earthquakes. As a result, personnel were dispatched to conduct safety inspections at stations and other facilities within a 14 kilometer radius of the epicenter of the quake.

Services stopped at 5:23 p.m, at which time only one train was in the area between Tainan and Chiayi, traveling northwards. Inspections were completed at 6:45 p.m. confirming the safety of facilities and structures inspected.

Operations on the High Speed Rail system were resumed after service was suspended for approximately 88 minutes.    [FULL  STORY]

Stagnant industry, falling investment, overly academic graduates and fiercer global competition are just a handful of the reasons why wages in Taiwan suck.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/19
By: Jane Rickards, Taiwan Business TOPICS Magazine

Why does nearly everyone in Taiwan feel they are working hard but still receiving a

meager pay packet?

“The biggest problem is the low rate of growth,” says Peng Su-ling, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting at the Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER). Other factors include the impact of global competition, the proximity of the enormous China market, and a union movement that is weak even by regional standards.

Economic growth has been lackluster in recent years compared with Taiwan’s rip-roaring economic glory days several decades ago that propelled it into the ranks of Asia’s Four Tigers. Four decades ago, Taiwan was a world leader in the manufacture of a whole range of products, from umbrellas and furniture to the downstream assembly of personal computers. But after other countries played catch-up, now only Taiwan’s upstream electronics companies constitute a sector that is competitive internationally (although some individual Taiwanese companies in other areas are outstanding world players).

As a result, GDP growth stood at just 1.5 percent in 2016 before international demand for Apple products containing local components pushed it up to an estimated 2.86 percent last year. The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) is forecasting 2.42 percent for 2018.    [FULL  STORY]

Project 2049 Institute report ‘U.S. Taiwan Relations in a Sea of Change’ offers policy recommendations for the U.S. to strengthen ties with Taiwan

Focus Taiwan  
Date: 2018/03/19
By: Duncan DeAeth,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On March 16, analysts in Washington D.C. published a report

with the Project 2049 Institute entitled “U.S. Taiwan Relations in a Sea of Change,” the same day that Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act.

The report examines the geopolitical situation facing Taiwan, and offers key policy recommendations for the U.S. government to strengthen relations with Taiwan, and to ease cross-strait tensions. Provocatively, the report calls for direct diplomatic meetings between the Trump and Tsai administrations to better coordinate on economic and security strategy.

A face to face meeting between President Trump and President Tsai Ing-wen is proposed in the report to help establish direct communication at the highest levels between leaders of the two countries.

Only several years ago, such a meeting would have been considered far out of bounds for recent U.S. policy towards Taiwan, which has been guided by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, on the one hand, and the desire of Washington to cultivate good relations with Beijing, on the other.    [FULL  STORY]

Variety
Date: March 18, 2018
By: Patrick Frater

This year’s edition of FilMart will be the last for Distribution Workshop as a Hong Kong-

based sales company. At the beginning of the month, the company announced plans to relocate to Taiwan from the beginning of April.

Virginia Leung, who currently heads sales will leave the company, which is controlled by Jeffrey Chan and Nansun Shi, and which has a minority investment from China’s Bona Film Group. Sales operations are to be restarted in Taipei, with June Wu, who also operates her own sales firm Ablaze Image, acting as a consultant and recruiting a new team.

The move was brought about by both the cost of operating from Hong Kong and by wider changes in the marketplace for film. Chan told Variety that the change was part of an evolution.

“We are having a reconception and a new focus,” said Chan. “When we started 10 years ago we only looked at the markets outside China, but now business is pouring into China.” That reflects a widely observed phenomenon that as Chinese cinema becomes more successful, its films are increasingly local and inward looking. That makes them harder to sell abroad. At the same time, film makers from outside China are clamoring for a piece of the huge and still expanding China box office.    [FULL  STORY]