Focus Taiwan0
Date: 06/11/20020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin, CNA staff reporter

One bright Sunday afternoon, Siti Johariyah and her friend hold hands and pose for pictures standing on the black-and-white checkered floor of Taipei Main Station hall, celebrating seeing each other for the first time in eight years.

"The hall is a good place to meet because it is comfortable and convenient," said the Indonesian caregiver in her 30s, who took the Taipei Metro from Luzhou, New Taipei. Her friend took the airport MRT from Taoyuan.

Visiting Taipei Main Station on Sunday afternoons has become a ritual for many migrant workers like Siti, who use the little free time they have to get togehter with people from home.

However, whether these gatherings will continue has become a political issue. Indeed, Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) recently found itself in a heated debate over whether the hall should permit mass gatherings after the COVID-19 pandemic eases.    [FULL  STORY]

FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRACY: Wang Hao-yu said that he supports free speech and said that KMT supporters had the right to call for his recall, but death threats go too far

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 12, 2020
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

Police urged people to remain civil during political disputes and not resort to violence, after they yesterday tracked down a suspect who allegedly made death threats against Taoyuan City Councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the aftermath of the Kaohsiung mayoral recall election on Saturday last week.

Wang yesterday told Taoyuan police that he had received death threats for two consecutive days, and was fearful that someone might take action against him.

More than 200 supporters of former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday gathered in front of Wang’s office in Taoyuan’s Jhongli (中壢) District, and threw eggs and joss paper, also known as ghost money, at the office.

They were protesting statements Wang made online about late Kaohsiung City Council speaker Hsu Kun-yuan (許崑源), police said, adding that police intervened to prevent the situation from escalating.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatiopnal
Date: 10 June, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

The head of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil , announced Tuesday that he will lead a delegation of trade representatives to visit Taiwan in August. That’s despite opposition from China, which said the move would damage the basis for cooperation between the Czech Republic and China.    [FULL  STORY]

A worrying spike in Chinese military activity near Taiwan since the beginning of 2020 has led some analysts to conclude that Beijing is exploiting a moment of distraction within the international system due to the COVID-19 pandemic to intimidate Taiwan and create a fait accompli in the Taiwan Strait. Closer analysis of trends that predate the outbreak, however, suggests that Beijing would have adopted the same escalatory strategy regardless of the international situation.

The National Interest
Date: June 10, 2020
By: by J. Michael Cole

Aworrying spike in Chinese military activity near Taiwan since the beginning of 2020 has led some analysts to conclude that Beijing is exploiting a moment of distraction within the international system due to the COVID-19 pandemic to intimidate Taiwan and create a fait accompli in the Taiwan Strait. Closer analysis of trends that predate the outbreak, however, suggests that Beijing would have adopted the same escalatory strategy regardless of the international situation.

Well before the outbreak of COVID-19 in late December 2019, Beijing had steadily increased the frequency of People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force transits across the Taiwan Strait as well as through the Strait of Miyako between Japan and Taiwan, and the Bashi Channel that separates the democratic island-nation and the Philippines. Brief intrusions by PLAAF aircraft near or into Taiwan’s Air Defense and Identification Zone (ADIZ), added to penetrations by Chinese military aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, were already more frequent prior to the global pandemic. 

The motives for this gradual increase in PLA activity near and around Taiwan are instead related to two key factors. First, higher traffic has been the natural outcome of China’s attempt to expand and consolidate its presence beyond the first island chain into the West Pacific and the South China Sea. This expansion is also related to Beijing’s ongoing effort to push the U.S. military out of what it regards as its avowed sphere of influence. Due to the vagaries of geography, Taiwan happens to stand in the middle of all that activity. Thus, while every sortie, passage, transit and exercise causes alarm in Taiwan and compels its military to scramble interceptors, it would be mistaken to regard the Beijing’s more assertive military activity in its totality as a javelin aimed at Taiwan.

Nevertheless — and this leads us to the second factor — the Chinese leadership has no compunction with the psychological effects that its military escalation may have on the Taiwanese public, even if, in some instances, such considerations may be secondary. Be that as it may, a substantial component of PLA activity in recent years has indeed been directed at Taiwan. This activity stems from the need for an increasingly expeditionary Chinese military to familiarize itself with, as well as collect intelligence about, Taiwan and its surroundings; to challenge an uptick in passages by U.S. and foreign military air and naval platforms in the region; as well as to wage, as we saw, a psychological war against the Tsai Ing-wen administration in Taipei.     [FULL  STORY8]

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/06/10
By: Yang Sen-hong, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

The United States has recently been taking a hard line against China. It has issued an order to stop Chinese airlines from flying passengers to the U.S. and sent another guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait on the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

However, some in the U.S. call on Democrats to oppose Trump's trade war with China, while others support a new security alliance to ensure peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Despite the lack of consensus in the U.S., the Department of State and Congress are collaborating on more legislation to thwart China's military buildup and regional ambitions. The U.S. and China are on the brink of a more intense stage of their simmering feud, while the U.S. and Taiwan enjoy a robust unofficial relationship and close cooperation, which might even be just a few steps away from official ties.

As the U.S. and China edge closer to a cold war, taking the side of Washington is a no-brainer given the CCP's relentless calls to bring Taiwan into the fold by force. Meanwhile, Washington has put Taiwan on its security agenda, sending military vessels and aircraft to sail through waters or fly over the island nation's airspace, with upgraded U.S.-Taiwan defense cooperation foreseeable in the near future.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 06/10/2020
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, June 10 (CNA) Taiwanese researchers who have come up with a Chinese medicine prescription to treat mild cases of COVID-19 are planning on selling the medicine overseas, they said at a press conference on Wednesday.

The prescription includes the dried root of Scutellaria baicalensis, or Chinese skullcap, and Houttuynia cordata, also known as fish mint, and could be available in Europe and the United States as early as July, according to the National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine (NRICM) research team.

The team has signed a non-exclusive license with a manufacturer in Taiwan and is in the process of obtaining a permit to export the medicine, it said.

Led by NRICM Director Su Yi-Chang (蘇奕彰), the team has devised four prescriptions for treating COVID-19 so far, one each aimed at mild, moderate, and severe cases, as well as one that helps those in the recovery stage of the disease.    [FULL  STORY]

CONVENIENCE: Normally, only 284 post offices stay open on Saturdays, mostly until noon, but the postal firm has decided to open all offices to distribute the vouchers

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 11, 2020
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

More than 1,200 post offices nationwide will be open on two Saturdays — July 18 and July 25 — for people to purchase Triple Stimulus Vouchers, Chunghwa Post said yesterday.

The Executive Yuan is to release the vouchers on July 15, which falls on a Wednesday.

In addition to electronic vouchers, people can purchase physical vouchers at post offices and convenience stores nationwide.

“We have 284 post offices that are open on Saturdays and most of them are open only until noon. To make it convenient for office workers to purchase vouchers, we are planning to have all of our post offices — 1,299 in total — to remain open the entire day on July 18 and July 25,” Chunghwa Post associate manager Kuo Chun-yang (郭純陽) said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 09 June, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

Monday was World Oceans Day and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is trying to inspire a love for Taiwan’s oceans via summer camps.

This is a school of butterfly fish near Penghu brought to us by Penghu University of Science and Technology. This beautiful scene can only be found near the Four Islands of Southern Penghu.

The Penghu government wants to ban the catching and selling of certain coral reef fish and crabs so they can protect marine life in the region. That’s why World Oceans Day is observed around the globe –to promote the sustainable development of our oceans and marine life.

Taiwan is promoting the preservation of its oceans through education. EPA Deputy Minister Tsai Hung-teh says the more people know about our environment, the more they’ll want to take care of it. He believes the closer we get to the ocean, the more we’ll come to love it.
[FULL  STORY]

RUSI
Date: 9 June 2020
By: Veerle Nouwens

Commentary,

Taiwan’s leader has proven to be a deft political player and a great political survivor. But she will need all her skills to navigate the island through the stormy seas which lie ahead.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has started her second term in office on a high note. She won re-election with over 56% of the popular vote, a landslide in Taiwanese terms. Her government also did very well in containing this year’s other major challenge, the coronavirus pandemic. Her government’s successful handling of the pandemic – despite being excluded from the World Health Organization – has rightfully garnered praise, and world leaders like EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thanked Taiwan for its donations of 5.6 million masks.

However, other serious challenges lie ahead. The US–China relationship has deteriorated to levels unseen in decades. The US is examining ways to exert pressure on China, such as through the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, and the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019. Conversely, support for Taiwan in the White House and Congress alike are growing, with bills like the TAIPEI Act and Taiwan Travel Act now in place.

In Taiwan, even the opposition Kuomintang Party is reportedly re-examining its position of a more China-friendly policy after its significant defeat in the January presidential elections. Taiwanese voters have closely followed Hong Kong’s diminishing autonomy under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ arrangement, which Beijing has offered to Taiwan as the only viable future for cross-strait relations. It is a future that President Tsai firmly rejected in her inaugural address. Unsurprising, given that opinion poll results in February 2020 show that a record number of respondents (83.2%) identify as Taiwanese, rather than Chinese (5.3%) or both (6.7%).    [FULL  STORY]

Flight marks 9th time this year Chinese military aircraft seen close to Taiwan's airspace

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/06/09: 
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Several Chinese fighter jets flew over Taiwan's airspace on Tuesday (June 9) following reports of a U.S. Navy transport jet seen flying directly over Taiwan.

The Ministry of National Defense said several Sukhoi-30 (Su-30) fighter jets briefly flew over the southwestern part of the nation's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), and Taiwan's Air Force quickly responded by broadcasting an order to drive them away.

The ministry said it has closely monitored the nation's surrounding airspace and has taken proactive measures to ensure the island's security.

It was the ninth time this year that Chinese military aircraft have been seen close to Taiwan's airspace. The presence of Chinese military aircraft this year was recorded on Jan. 23, Feb. 9, Feb. 10, Feb. 28, March 16, April 10, May 8, and May 16.    [FULL  STORY]