THAI ASSISTANCE: The representative office in Thailand worked with local authorities to help trafficking victims return home, while one in the group has been charged
Eight Taiwanese who were lured to Cambodia with lucrative job offers only to be forced to work illegally were brought home on Sunday night in a joint effort between Taiwanese and Thai authorities, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said. Nine people — six men and three women aged 23 to 42 — boarded China Airlines Flight CI-836 from Bangkok, with assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 9:55pm and were taken to the Aviation Police Bureau for questioning before entering home isolation in accordance with Taiwan’s COVID-19 regulations. The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday
ORDNANCE: Under a five-year plan, the Chungshan Institute would make about 200 Hsiung Feng II and III/IIIE, and Hsiung Sheng missiles, an official said
The Ministry of National Defense plans to counter the Chinese navy by producing more than 1,000 anti-ship missiles over the next five years, a defense official familiar with the matter said yesterday. The comments came after China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy began a series of military drills in a simulated naval blockade of Taiwan proper following a visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Although China has in the past few years rapidly produced many warships and added them to its navy, these large vessels are more suited for warfare on the open sea than in the narrow
The organizers of WorldPride 2025 have canceled the Kaohsiung event because its licensing group, InterPride, demanded that it remove “Taiwan” from the event’s name, they said in a statement yesterday. Kaohsiung was to host WorldPride Taiwan 2025 after being granted the right by the global LGBTQ advocacy group. However, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee said that InterPride recently gave “abrupt notice” asking it to change the name of the event and use “Kaohsiung” instead of “Taiwan,” even though it applied for the event using “Taiwan” in its name. The name was initially chosen for its significance to the Taiwanese LGBTQ community, as
POTENTIAL SETBACK: Although Chinese chip designers and foundry firms already have US EDA software, they might be unable to update those programs under new US rules
The US’ latest ban on advanced electronic design automation (EDA) software exports to China might hinder Chinese chip companies from accessing advanced semiconductor technology, as they attempt to upgrade to 3-nanometer processes in the next three to five years, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security on Friday announced bans on EDA tools for gate-all-around field-effect transistors (GAAFET), a new-generation semiconductor technology that US chipmaker Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co from South Korea are adopting to make 4-nanometer and 3-nanometer chips. The bureau in a statement said that gate-all-around field-effect transistor
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said
Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
A delegation of US lawmakers yesterday arrived in Taiwan for a two-day visit, the second high-level group to visit the nation amid military tensions with China. Beijing has been holding military drills around the nation to express its anger at this month’s visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taipei, said that the delegation is led by US Senator Ed Markey, who is being accompanied by US representatives John Garamendi, Alan Lowenthal, Don Beyer and Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen as part of a larger visit to
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
Aug 15 to Aug 21 Within hours, a minor traffic dispute between two taxi drivers had escalated into a full-out street brawl involving hundreds of combatants. Armed with metal bats, car locks and even tear gas, the midnight battle on Aug. 17, 1995 between Chuan Ming (全民) and Beiqu (北區) taxi drivers associations lasted for over four hours at the roundabout on Tingzhou Road (汀州路) in Taipei. Scattered clashes also broke out in other areas of the capital, as well as in what is today’s New Taipei City. The crowd dispersed around 4:30am, but peace lasted only a few hours. Around 7am, about
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely
Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
The US is imposing export controls on technologies that support the production of advanced semiconductors and turbines, protecting against their “nefarious” military and commercial use. The innovations “are essential to the national security” of the US and meet the criteria for the protection, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement on Friday. The agency creates and enforces export restrictions. “Advancements that allow technologies like semiconductors and engines to operate faster, more efficiently, longer and in more severe conditions can be game changers in both the commercial and military context,” US Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry
SAFEGUARDING PEACE: While Beijing appears to have scaled down its military drills around Taiwan, it will not cease its provocations, the president told air force officers
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that China’s threat of force is undiminished, even though Beijing’s largest- ever military drills around the nation seemed to be scaling down. Furious about a visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China launched ballistic missiles and deployed multiple aircraft and warships in the past few days to simulate sea and air attacks. China on Wednesday said it would keep up patrols, but had “completed various tasks” around Taiwan, signaling a possible end to the war games even while keeping up pressure. Taiwan has also been conducting relatively small-scale, annual exercises, scheduled before
The Chinese air force is today to send fighter jets and bombers to Thailand for a joint exercise with the Thai military. The training is to include air support, strikes on ground targets and small and large-scale troop deployment, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on its Web site. Beijing’s expanding military activities in the Asia-Pacific region have alarmed the US and its allies and form part of a growing strategic and economic competition that has inflamed tensions between the world’s two largest economies. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in June visited Thailand as part of an effort
GOOD TIMING: The visit is significant, as it shows that China’s drills have not deterred members of the US government from visiting Taiwan, a DPP legislator said
Taiwan is committed to maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told visiting US lawmakers yesterday. Tsai made the pledge as she met with a bipartisan congressional delegation led by US Senator Ed Markey at the Presidential Office. The unannounced two-day trip came after Beijing held live-fire military exercises in waters around Taiwan in the wake of a visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi from Aug. 3 to Aug. 4, the first visit by a sitting US House speaker since 1997. Members of the delegation include US representatives John Garamendi, Alan Lowenthal, Don Beyer and
Manila is looking to buy heavy-lift Chinook helicopters from the US, after scrapping a deal with Russia worth 12.7 billion pesos (US$227.43 million) to avoid sanctions, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez said yesterday. In June, days before then-Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte ended his six-year term, the Philippines scrapped a deal to buy 16 Mi-17 Russian military transport helicopters because of fears of US sanctions linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This cancellation of this contract is precipitated mainly by the war in Ukraine. While there are sanctions expected to come our way, from the United States and western countries, obviously
BOLSTERING TIES: The US is ‘developing an ambitious road map for trade negotiations’ with Taiwan and plans to continue transits through the Taiwan Strait, a US official said
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday expressed “sincere gratitude” toward the US for taking “concrete actions” to maintain security and peace in the Taiwan Strait and the region, after the White House on Friday said it would boost trade with Taiwan and insist on the right of air and sea passage in the area in response to China’s “provocative” behavior. A new trade plan is to be unveiled within days, while US forces are to transit the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks, US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell told reporters in a teleconference. The statement came after Beijing
THAAD: Yoon Suk-yeol has vowed to abandon his predecessor’s pledge not to deploy any more batteries, saying they are critical to defense
China and South Korea yesterday clashed over a US missile defense shield, threatening to undermine efforts by the new government in Seoul to overcome long-standing security differences. The disagreement over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system installed in South Korea emerged after an apparently smooth first visit to China by South Korea’s foreign minister this week. China, contending that the THAAD’s powerful radar could peer into its airspace, curbed trade and cultural imports after Seoul announced its deployment in 2016, dealing a major blow to relations. A senior official in South Korea’s presidential office yesterday told reporters that the THAAD is
US DEAL INKED: Next year’s defense budget would be NT$15.4bn higher than this year’s, while the long-term plan to service Patriot systems would cost NT$2.52bn, sources said
Taiwan’s Patriot missiles are getting a maintenance package of NT$2.52 billion (US$84.1 million) over four-and-a-half years from the US, a notification about the deal issued by the Ministry of National Defense showed on Thursday. The US Department of State in February approved the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s request to offer a maintenance package for Taiwanese Patriot PAC-2/GEM and Patriot PAC-3 missile defense systems, said a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. US-made Patriot missile defense systems are designed to shoot down hostile aircraft and ballistic missiles, capabilities that experts said Taiwan urgently needs amid China’s frequent incursions into its
China staged fresh military drills around Taiwan yesterday, slamming another visit by US lawmakers to the nation days after a similar trip by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi triggered a furious response from Beijing. The five-member congressional delegation, led by US Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, met with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday. “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army continues to train and prepare for war, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely crush any form of Taiwan independence separatism and foreign interference attempts,” Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said. “We warn the US and
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