VITAL INDUSTRY: A war in the Strait would be a catastrophe, as Taiwan ‘lies at the heart’ of the world’s semiconductor industry, the magazine’s report said
The government yesterday welcomed international attention on Taiwan’s security, saying that China is to blame for threatening regional stability, after a report by The Economist called Taiwan “the most dangerous place on Earth.” The report is featured on the cover of the magazine’s latest issue, which depicts the nation as the epicenter of a US-China rivalry. The cover shows Taiwan in a radar display with dots crossing the Taiwan Strait accompanied by a Chinese flag and dots nearing the east coast with a US flag. The US maintains a “one China” policy, while maintaining relations with Taiwan, but such “strategic ambiguity is breaking
HIGH-RISK GROUP: After the latest outbreak, family members of workers exposed to infection would from tomorrow be eligible for government-funded vaccines
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported four local COVID-19 cases: three family members of an infected worker at a quarantine hotel and a family member of an infected pilot. The new cases bring the number of infections involving China Airlines Ltd (中華航空) pilots and the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, where many of the airline’s crew members quarantined, to 24. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said three of them are the husband, son and daughter of case No. 1,129, a woman in her 60s, who works at the hotel. The son is in
The media reported this week on another government stimulus program to make the birth rate rise. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that the budget for the government’s programs would reach NT$85 billion (US$3.05 billion) by 2023, and said that the government’s monthly subsidy for child support would rise from NT$3,500 to NT$5,000. These measures are a well-meaning attempt to address Taiwan’s globally low fertility and birth rates, but they are rather like poking a heart attack victim with a stick in the hope of reviving him. The problems driving the low birth rates are well known: the lack and cost of
When Melinda Gates asked her husband, Microsoft Corp cofounder Bill Gates, to let her coauthor the 2013 annual letter about their foundation, the conversation blew up into a fight. “It got hot,” Melinda Gates wrote in her 2019 book The Moment of Lift. “Bill said the process we had for the Annual Letter had been working well for the foundation for years, and he didn’t see why it should change,” she wrote. Ultimately, Bill Gates agreed for her to write a separate piece about contraceptives, while he penned the main letter about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work. In the next year’s letter,
NEXT STEP? The contract chipmaker said it would decide whether to add more plants based on operation efficiency, cost economics and demand
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to build several more chipmaking fabs in the US state of Arizona beyond the one already planned, three people familiar with the matter said. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, announced in May last year that it would build a US$12 billion fab in Arizona. The 12-inch wafer fab in Phoenix is expected to start mass production in 2024, the Investment Commission said in December, when it approved the plan. Three sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that up
VIRUS CURBS: Visiting people staying at healthcare and long-term care facilities in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan is banned until May 17, the CECC announced
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday banned visits to patients or residents at healthcare and long-term care facilities in three cities until May 17. It also reported six imported cases of COVID-19 and two cases with unclear infection sources. As the number of locally transmitted cases rises, some of whom have visited many places in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, enhanced disease prevention measures have to be implemented in the three cities, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. “Visiting people staying at healthcare and long-term care facilities in Taipei, New Taipei City and
REBALANCING ACT: Mark Liu said that instead of trying to move the supply chain, the US should invest in R&D to develop experts in the manufacturing field
The chip industry in Taiwan has been called its “silicon shield” because the world needs the support of Taiwan’s high-tech industry and would not let a war break out in the region, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) said in an interview with a US television show host. Speaking to CBS’ 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl, Liu said that as a critical link in the global semiconductor supply chain, Taiwan’s chip industry is dubbed the “silicon shield” for a reason. “That means the world all needs Taiwan’s high-tech industry support. So they will not let the war
Views in Taiwan are “hardening” in favor of independence after China’s moves in the past few years to tighten control over Hong Kong, the head of the US intelligence community said on Thursday. “I would say that already Taiwan is hardening, to some extent, toward independence as they’re watching, essentially, what happened in Hong Kong, and I think that is an increasing challenge,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee. Questions about China dominated the “Worldwide Threats” hearing with Haines and US Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the head of the Defense Intelligence
UP TO TWO DAYS: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said that most who got the shot and felt discomfort only felt ill for the first two days
Employees can ask for unpaid COVID-19 vaccination leave, from the day of their shot until the end of the next day, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced yesterday, adding that the policy takes effect immediately. “The policy of unpaid COVID-19 vaccination leave will be implemented starting on May 5, and all workers and civil servants will be eligible,” Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a news conference. Leave can be taken on the day of vaccination and if recipients feel discomfort after getting the shot, they can extend the leave to all of the
PROSECUTORS INVESTIGATING: The 33-year-old said he was not a criminal, but had been unable to find work in China, and had fled to find freedom and democracy
A self-declared Chinese defector who late on Friday came ashore in Taichung on an inflatable dinghy has been detained in quarantine awaiting further investigation, the coast guard said yesterday. The 33-year-old surnamed Zhou (周) reportedly set off for Taiwan from Shishi in China’s Fujian Province on Friday morning on a boat equipped with a propeller and 90 liters of fuel. He reached the Port of Taichung’s western wharf at about 9pm and climbed on top of an embankment where he stayed, unsure of what to do next. At about 10:30pm, Lin Hsueh-hsien (林學賢) and his coworker heard calls coming from the embankment and
TESTING: Viral genome sequencing suggests an infection chain among the recent pilot and hotel worker cases, but the hotel’s air-conditioning was apparently not to blame
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported one locally transmitted COVID-19 case, while viral genome sequencing has suggested a link between China Airlines (華航) pilots, their family members and workers at a quarantine hotel who contracted the virus. Since April 20, 10 China Airlines cargo pilots have tested positive for COVID-19, including one in Australia. The sources of infection have not been established. As of Friday, two family members of infected pilots, three family members of pilots who tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and four Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel workers tested positive for the virus. Many of the airline’s
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger on Friday said that US-China tensions threaten to engulf the entire world and could lead to an Armageddon-like clash between the two military and technology giants. The 97-year-old, who as an adviser to then-US president Richard Nixon crafted the 1971 unfreezing of relations between Washington and Beijing, said the mix of economic, military and technological strengths of the two superpowers carries more risks than the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Strains with China are “the biggest problem for America, the biggest problem for the world,” Kissinger told the McCain Institute’s annual Sedona Forum on
Australia is reviewing whether to force a Chinese company to sell a lease to a strategically important port used by US Marines, a move that could further stoke tensions with Beijing. The National Security Committee of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Cabinet has asked the Department of Defence to advise on the ownership, Australian Minister of Defence Peter Dutton said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald published late on Sunday. Asked whether the government was mulling forced divestment, he said officials would consider the national interests. The move is likely to further hurt ties between Australia and its largest trading
DISEASE PREVENTION: Foreigners who have visited India in the past 14 days, but do not have a valid Taiwanese resident certificate are banned from entry to Taiwan
Starting today, foreign travelers who have visited India in the past 14 days, but do not have a valid Taiwanese resident certificate would be temporarily banned from entering Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The announcement came after the center on Sunday said that all travelers who have been to India in the past 14 days, including transit passengers, would be placed in 14 days of centralized quarantine upon entering Taiwan, starting today. They would also be required to take a mandatory polymerase chain reaction test for COVID-19 upon ending quarantine, and practice seven days of self-health management if
A debt dispute between a restaurant owner and a criminal ring might be behind a bizarre cockroach attack at the Taipei eatery on Monday night while it was hosting a police gathering, Taipei Police Commissioner Chen Jia-chang (陳嘉昌) said yesterday. Preliminary findings of a police investigation into the case at the G House Taipei suggest that the unusual incident might have been directed at the restaurant’s owner, who allegedly owes money to the Bamboo Union, Chen said. The suspects were Bamboo Union members and there was no evidence indicating that the cockroaches were targeted at the police officers at the restaurant, he
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has over the past few months continued to escalate its hegemonic rhetoric and increase its incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The US, in turn, has finally realized how its “strategic ambiguity” is increasingly wearing thin. Similarly, any hopes the US had that the PRC would be a responsible stakeholder and economic player have diminished, if not been abandoned. Taiwan, of course, remains as the same de facto independent, democratic nation that the PRC covets. As a result, the US needs to reconsider not only the amount, but also the type of arms
The joint statement to be issued after the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting is expected to include strong support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organizations, a senior US Department of State official told Japanese media on Tuesday. The Asahi Shimbun in a report yesterday quoted the unnamed official as saying that Taiwan’s participation would help other nations fight the COVID-19 pandemic. “Not only does Taiwan have the right to participate, but it has a lot of experience that can help all of us in the fight against COVID-19,” the official said. “It would be self-defeating to exclude them.” The report
May 3 to May 9 The Japanese soldiers thought they had already subjugated the Atayal when they set out toward the mountains of today’s eastern Taoyuan on May 5, 1907. The two brigades, one from the north and one from the south, were tasked with pushing the colonial government’s frontier defense lines deeper into Aboriginal territory to gain access to valuable camphor. “The defense lines were used to protect the economic activities, mainly camphor production, on the [Japanese] side of the line,” writes Wu Cheng-hsien (吳政憲) in the paper, “The Principle and Utilization of the Mortars on the Frontier Defense Lines”
LOOKING FOR ORIGIN: Hotel staff might have contracted COVID-19 after cleaning the rooms of pilots from foreign airlines, the head of the center said
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported seven new COVID-19 cases, including three domestic ones linked to Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport. Starting from next week, the center is to inspect quarantine hotels nationwide, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a news briefing in Taipei yesterday. The center on Thursday said that a senior housekeeping employee at the hotel (identified as case No. 1,120) had tested positive for the virus, while 412 people at the hotel were moved to government quarantine facilities and received virus tests. Among them, three hotel employees, all Taiwanese, tested positive
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