EVIDENCE? Wang Ping-chung also called on Clara Chou to reveal the sources behind her allegations that his father’s bank account had received NT$5 million

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 04, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

In an attempt to defend his self-proclaimed innocence amid allegations he received funding

from China for pro-unification propaganda, New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) yesterday took legal action against two media outlets that he said misled the public into thinking he was guilty.

Wang filed charges of aggravated libel with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office against a Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reporter, as well as the news division head and report center director at TV channel SET News (三立新聞台).

“The prosecutors’ office never listed me as a suspect in its investigation, nor did it launch a new probe with me as a suspect. However, some media outlets used affirmative headlines and reported that I had accepted money from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office,” Wang said.

The two media outlets are the only ones that failed to correct their reports after Wang urged media companies that had published what he called misleading articles to clarify their mistakes or face legal action, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

The New York Times
Date: JAN. 2, 2018
By: Chris Hortonjan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — It is an age-old arrangement, and one that is usually implicit: Parents

pay for their children’s educations, and hope that in their old age the children will support them.

But in a case that made its way to Taiwan’s highest court, a mother who had financed her son’s dental training sued him, asserting that he had broken a written agreement to support her from the proceeds of his dental practice.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sided with mom.

The case attracted considerable attention because the mother and son had put down in a written contract — signed when he was 20 — what is often left unsaid, particularly in a heavily Confucian-influenced society that emphasizes filial piety. The principle is backed up by law in Taiwan, where adults are legally prohibited from abandoning their parents.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date 2018-01-02

Taiwan has relocated its representative office in Nigeria from the capital Abuja to Lagos,

the country’s largest city, 800 kilometers away. The office is slated to open Friday.

The relocation of the representative office was brought about by pressure from China. The foreign ministry has already notified Nigeria’s representative office that it must move out of Taipei based on the principle of reciprocity.

Also on Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesman Andrew Lee said an anti-forgery label to be attached to the new version of Taiwan’s passport will not affect immigration checks when entering other countries.

The foreign ministry has been embarrassed after an image of Washington Dulles International Airport was accidentally printed in the new version of Taiwan’s passport. The ministry plans to attach an anti-forgery label to the hundreds of thousands of passports that have been printed with the error. To pulp and reprint the documents would cost millions of taxpayer dollars.    [FULL  STORY]

China drew up list of rewards for contacting potential spies: prosecutors

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/02
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Hours after accusations he had been involved in a Chinese spy

ring, New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) denied Tuesday that he had accepted US$200,000 (NT$5.9 million) from China’s government to fund his online activities.

Earlier in the day, Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭), a former Chinese student who is appealing against a 14-month prison sentence for trying to recruit a spy, faced new charges that he had been using Wang and two other New Party officials to set up a spy ring.

A news release from prosecutors alleged that the Taiwan Affairs Office (國台辦), the Chinese government department in charge of relations with Taiwan, had supplied funds to help two initiatives Wang was involved in, the Fire News site and the New China Youth group.

The ultimate aim was to infiltrate Taiwan’s military and obtain confidential information, according to a Central News Agency report.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/02
By Christie Chen

Taipei, Jan. 2 (CNA) Taiwan implemented a slew of new measures on Jan. 1, including

higher monthly and hourly minimum wages and an expanded ban on plastic bags.

●Labor:

The monthly minimum wage for workers covered under the Labor Standards Act has been increased from NT$21,009 (US$711) to NT$22,000, while the hourly minimum wage has been raised from NT$133 to NT$140.

Employers are required to provide personal beds and cooking facilities for migrant fishermen who live on fishing boats, which now must be equipped with life-saving and fire-fighting equipment.

The Ministry of Labor has introduced an online system, the Foreign Worker Employer Transfer Query system, to provide information in English, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese to foreign workers about transferring their employment contracts.
[FULL  STORY]

‘UNDERCOVER’: The KMT used the Republic of China Public Service Association to infiltrate local communities and garner support for the party, the committee said

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 03, 2018
By: Chen Yu-fu  /  Staff reporter

The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is to investigate alleged links between

the Republic of China Public Service Association and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) next month to determine if the association was a KMT affiliate helping the party consolidate its rule during the authoritarian era.

Association members were allowed to combine their years working at the association with the time they spent in the government jobs to qualify for pensions, a privilege granted to members of the KMT and civil-service organizations believed to be affiliated with the party, the committee said.

It has identified the association as the primary target of its investigations this year and is to convene a hearing early next month.

Founded in 1952, the association established more than 300 branches in cities and counties across the nation, and most branches shared offices with local KMT chapters and China Youth Corps chapters, the committee said.   [FULL  STORY]

A New Taipei City firefighter was attacked by New Year’s Eve revelers as he tried to stop them from illegally setting off fireworks

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/01
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—A New Taipei City firefighter was attacked by New Year’s Eve

revelers when he was trying to stop them from illegally setting off fireworks on Sunday night. The attackers were arrested and the people who violated the Firework and Firecracker Management Act will be fined at least NT$300,000.

New Taipei City Fire Department said on Monday it dispatched eight personnel in four teams to the area around Taipei Metro’s Tamsui Station to enforce the ban on setting off fireworks illegally.

Near midnight, the firefighters found some revelers were going to set off fireworks and therefore went to confront them in an attempt to stop them from illegally setting off the fireworks. Then the alleged attack and clamor took place, the fire department said.

The fire department said a firefighter surnamed Chung (鍾) intervened to stop the people from igniting the fireworks but was yelled at by 10 people, four of whom even physically attacked him, causing him  injuries. Another firefighter enforcing the ban called police for help.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/01
By: Lu Hsin-hui, Liu Li-jung, Lin Ke-lun, Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, Jan. 1 (CNA) The recent expansion of China’s long-distance training drills over

waterways near Taiwan were mainly targeted at the United States and Japan while also attempting to intimidate Taiwan, experts said recently, urging the government to prepare for possible incidents.

According to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, Chinese aircraft and vessels operated near Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) 25 times from August 2016 to Dec. 2017.

By sending its planes and ships past the “first island chain” into the Western Pacific China has gained multiple benefits in terms of military capability, a senior air force military officer who wished to remain anonymous told CNA.

The drills were not exclusively targeted at Taiwan but also sought to pressure neighboring countries, the officer said.    [FULL  STORY]