The News Lens
Date: 2017/03/17
By: Jules Quartly

Taiwan’s indigenous people are on the cusp of winning hard-won land and rights, but

not everyone is celebrating.

The president has said sorry, again and again, for the violent oppression of Taiwan’s indigenous population, promised to address longstanding injustices, push through a bill of rights and return ancestral lands.

But it’s not enough for a group of indigenous protesters camped outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Ketagalan Boulevard, Taipei, since February 23.

Led by Panai Kusui and Nabu Husungan Istanda, who are married, folk singers and longtime rights campaigners, they claim President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is breaking her word to them.    [FULL  STORY]

Almost two thirds of Taiwanese working abroad are located in China

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/17
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Nearly two thirds of Taiwanese working overseas were

employed in China in 2015, according to statistics released by the government on Thursday.

According to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), 58 percent of all Taiwanese working abroad were based in China in 2015, which accounted for 420,000 Taiwanese citizens out of a total of 724,000 working overseas. The most recent statistics on Taiwanese working abroad.

The 2015 numbers represented a slight decline from 58.84 percent in 2014, or 427,000 Taiwanese workers, the DGBAS data showed.

The DGBAS said the slight drop in the number of Taiwanese working in China was in part due to the decline in foreign investment there due to the increasing cost of labor.
[FULL  STORY]

DIFFERENT NEEDS:Project 2049 Institute director Randy Schriver dismissed the idea of Taiwan getting a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system like in South Korea

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 18, 2017
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

The chance of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)

signing a fourth US-China communique when they meet next month is very unlikely, a former US Department of State official said yesterday in Taipei.

“The information I have is that there is no plan for a fourth communique, so I don’t expect they will produce one in this meeting,” former US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver said.

Schriver, who now serves as president of the Project 2049 Institute, a US think tank focusing on security issues in Asia, said that while he expects that Trump and Xi would talk about the US’ “one China” policy during their meeting, the US president is likely to also underscore the importance of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the “six assurances.”

He also expressed the hope that any conclusions of the Trump-Xi meeting would include “all the right things” about Taiwan and Washington’s important relationship with Taipei.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatioinal
Date: 2017-03-16

The defense minister, Feng Shih-kuan, says the military will continue to develop

strategies of waging asymmetrical warfare by air, land, and sea. Feng was speaking Thursday while addressing the Legislature’s committee on foreign and defense affairs.

Feng said the nation’s defense doctrine is one of multi-domain deterrence. He said the armed forces have advanced technology and also the will to defend the nation from attack. He mentioned smart mines, which he said are an effective deterrent. The minister said he hoped for the development of unmanned vehicles which could be used offensively as well as for reconnaissance.

Feng said he feels the biggest challenges for the defense ministry are a gap in spending and the difficulty of recruiting enough career soldiers to get rid of conscription. The minister said he would like to see defense spending rise to 3% of GDP.    [FULL  STORY]

The defense budget for this year is around NT$320 billion (US$10.45 billion), which is just over 2% of GDP.

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/16
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taiwan has been a welcoming place for foreign students, but one recent bizarre turn

of events raised suspicions from the public.

A student from China was unmasked as a spy who approached Taiwanese politicians, officials and academics in an attempt at creating a network to provide him, and his handlers back home in the mother country, with key information about the island.

While the practice seems to have become routine for Chinese spies, his identity still came as something of a shock. Technically speaking, the suspect was no longer a student, since he graduated from National Chengchi University last year and had re-entered Taiwan under the pretext of business.

Public opinion in Taiwan had only barely processed the news, or it suffered a further shock as media reports revealed Thursday that a military police officer who once served as a bodyguard to former Vice President Annette Lu had turned into a spy for China.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/16
By: Chao Li-yen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 16 (CNA) A tertiary education delegation from the Philippines visited

Tunghai University (THU) in Taichung last week as part of a one-week exchange program, the university said Thursday.

Led by Alex B. Brillantes, a member of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the delegation of 26 college deans and seven other people from the University of Rizal System in the Philippines visited Taiwan from March 6-11, THU said in a statement.

On the last day of the trip, the delegation toured THU, accompanied by Chen Li-yin (陳立穎), a division chief at Taiwan’s Ministry of Education’s Department of International and Cross-Strait Education, THU said.    [FULL  STORY]

FAKE NEWS NOTICE:A tool to be developed by third parties would send Internet users a notice if the material they are about to post contains false information

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 17, 2017
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday said the government would not resort to

legislation to curb “fake news,” but would — through “Internet governance” — commission a third party to establish a fact-checking mechanism.

Calls for anti-infiltration regulation and amendments to the Fundamental Communications Act (通訊傳播基本法) have been made in response to increasing reports of “fake news” on the Internet and the spread of false information.

“The freedom of speech and human rights protections that Taiwanese enjoy today are the fruit of the toil and blood of the nation’s countless democracy pioneers. The government will not allow any damage to be done to them,” Cabinet spokesperson Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) quoted the premier as saying.    [FULL  STORY]