Taipei Times
Date: May 09, 2015
By: William Lowther  /  Staff reporter, in WASHINGTON

Taiwan is a key component of US Asia-Pacific policies, including the rebalance to Asia, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a written statement on Thursday.

“The US continues to expand and enhance its strong and multifaceted unofficial relationship with Taiwan,” he said in a formal answer to questions asked more than two months ago by Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.

Kerry’s statement came just three days after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and reaffirmed Beijing’s support for closer cross-strait economic ties.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/08
By: Lu Hsin-hui, Kelven Huaang and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 8 (CNA) Nearly 70 percent of Taiwanese opposed the comment

CNA file photo

made by ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) during a recent trip to China that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China,” according to a poll conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Chu said on May 4 ahead of his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) that through the efforts of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait in 1992, a consensus was reached that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, but with each side ascribing different content and definitions to the concept of one China.”

The DPP poll asked respondents if they agreed that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China,” with 66.7 percent disagreeing and 23.3 percent agreeing, said DPP spokesman Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬).     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-08
By: Yang Yi and Staff Reporter

There are concerns in Taiwan’s pan-blue camp that Eric Chu, incumbent chair

Eric Chu, left, meets Xi Jinping in Beijing, May 4. (Photo/CNS)

of the ruling Kuomintang, will not run for the 2016 presidential elections, reports our Chinese-language sister newspaper China Times.

Chu, who is currently the mayor of New Taipei, gained popularity within the party after meeting with general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese president Xi Jinping on May 4 in Beijing.

There has been much speculation that Chu will take part in the party primaries, despite his repeated denials and promises that he will continue as New Taipei mayor until the end of his term in office. Despite his popularity, there are a range of voices within the KMT, with some in support and some against the idea of Chu running.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date:  May 09, 2015
By: Alison Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday panned remarks

Hung Hsiu-chu speaks at National Taiwan University in Taipei, May 6. (Photo/CNA)

by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) that her stance on the nation’s “status quo” is “aligned with the US,” adding that the US “recognizes the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] as the only legitimate government of China,” calls for the gradual reduction of arms sales to Taiwan and is against Taiwan’s participation in international organizations that require statehood.

Online media outlet NewTalk reported that Tsai told pro-independence groups earlier this week that her interpretation of the “status quo” is in line with the stances of the US and Japan, which is “a status quo of [keeping] Taiwan’s sovereignty” and “a status quo that sees Taiwan as not belonging to China.”     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/07
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, May 7 (CNA) A hotel and a culinary school in Taipei on Thursday jointly created a roll cake measuring 268.69 meters in length, breaking the world record for the longest roll cake set by Japan at 140.62 meters in the Guinness Book of World Records, according to a hotel spokesman.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel Taipei, in collaboration of Kaiping Culinary High School, spent more than one year studying how to make a roll cake with ingredients including raspberry, taro paste and pineapple that is long enough while maintaining its perfect curve, the spokesman said.

The record breaking cake was made with 86 kg of taro butter and raspberry jam, 164 kg of pineapple and 20 kg of chocolate by a team of chefs from the hotel and 35 students from the school. The process was witnessed by an official adjudicator for a new Guinness Book of World Records record in the Greater China region.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-07
By: CNA

One presidential aspirant from Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang waded into Taiwan’s

Hung Hsiu-chu speaks at National Taiwan University in Taipei, May 6. (Photo/CNA)

top political issue Wednesday, saying she would use the term “one China, same interpretation” to describe the status quo of relations between Taiwan and China.

Hung Hsiu-chu, a vice chair of the KMT, told a university audience that the de jure status quo of cross-strait ties is “overlapping sovereignty claims by two constitutional governments in two separate jurisdictions.”

In other words, she said, there are two constitutional governments inside “the entire China,” Hung said in speech titled “Whither Taiwan?” at National Taiwan University.

In a question and answer session, a student raised doubts about Hung’s proposal for signing a peace pact with China, asking why China would sign such an accord when it has not given up its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-07
By: Tang Ya-wen and Staff Reporter

Jeng Ming-shiou, a research fellow at the Biodiversity Research Center in

A giant milkfish at a fish market. (Photo courtesy of Jeng Ming-shiou)

Taiwan’s Academic Sinica, recently discovered large milkfish in the waters off the coasts of Kenting, Penghu, and Green island. The fish hadn’t been seen there in that past. Meanwhile, Jeng also found that the numbers of silver-stripe round herring had sharply decreased. He suggested that the round herring population could have been devastated by milkfish, reports our Chinese-language sister paper the China Times.

When Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan in 2009, several hundred thousand milkfish bred by farmers in Chiayi’s Tung-Shi Fishery Harbor were tossed into the sea by the strong winds and rain which destroyed their ponds, according to Jeng. The fish were later found in waters around Taiwan, having grown to very large sizes.

Jeng said he spent NT$1,500 (US$50) buying a 100 centimeter milkfish in Pingtung’s fish market weighing almost 10 kilograms in 2013, while a conventional milkfish is less than 5cm, and weights only 1 kg.     [FULL  STORY]