Taiwan slaughtered China 13-1 yesterday at the 25th Asian Baseball Championship in Sapporo, Japan, exorcising the ghosts of its humiliating defeats to China at the Beijing Olympic Games last year and the World Baseball Classic in March.
The Taiwanese team unleashed its fury against the Chinese team with a total of three homeruns and 14 hits.
Taiwan opened the scoring with two points in the first inning, thanks to a wild pitch by Chinese starter Lu Jiangang and a second-base hit by Taiwan’s Lin Hung-yu (林泓育).
They scored another point in the second inning thanks to several defensive mistakes by Chinese players.
In the third inning, Taiwan began a powerful offensive, scoring six points by the end of that inning.
By the fourth inning, Taiwan had a seemingly unassailable 9-0 lead over China, made even stronger when Liu Chien-chung scored with a hit in the fifth.
By the sixth inning, the Taiwanese had secured a decisive 11-1 lead before finishing in the seventh inning 13-1 after Wu Tsung-chun (吳宗峻) hit a two-point homerun.
The Taiwanese team had been striving to even the score after unexpected losses in recent years to Chinese teams, which are regarded as having much less experience than the Taiwanese.
Taiwan beat South Korea 5-4 on Saturday in the championships that opened that day in Hokkaido, capital of Sapporo Prefecture.
It was defeated 6-5 by defending champion Japan the following day.
Four teams — South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China — are in the semi-final round of the regional baseball championships, which are held every two years.
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS