China lashes out at US over Hong Kong sanctions

UNPERTURBED? Hong Kong Liaison Office Director Luo Huining, who was targeted along with Carrie Lam, said that he does not ‘have a dime’s worth’ of foreign assets

China yesterday slammed the US for imposing “barbarous” sanctions in response to Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, capping a dramatic week of deteriorating relations between the world’s two biggest economies. In the toughest US action on Hong Kong since China imposed national security legislation on the territory, Washington on Friday sanctioned a group of Chinese and Hong Kong officials — including Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥). The move came after US President Donald Trump’s administration forced Chinese Internet giants TikTok and WeChat to end all operations in the US. China yesterday criticized the sanctions as “barbarous and rude.” “The ill intentions of US politicians to support people who are anti-China and messing up Hong Kong have been clearly revealed,” Beijing’s Hong Kong Liaison Office said in a statement. The US Department of the Treasury announced that it was freezing the US assets of Lam and 10 other senior officials, including Hong Kong Liaison Office Director Luo Huining (駱惠寧). It accused the sanctioned individuals of being “directly responsible for implementing Beijing’s policies of suppression of freedom and democratic processes.” The move criminalizes any US financial transactions with the sanctioned officials. In a short statement, Luo said that he welcomed the blacklisting. “I have done what I should do for the country and for Hong Kong,” he said. “I don’t have a dime’s worth in foreign assets.” The Hong Kong government described the sanctions as “shameless and despicable.” “We will fully support the central government to adopt countermeasures,” it said in a statement. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the security legislation contravened promises made by China ahead of Hong Kong’s 1997 handover from Britain that the territory could keep key freedoms and autonomy for 50 years. “Today’s actions send a clear message that the Hong Kong authorities’ actions are unacceptable,” Pompeo said in a statement. As well as Luo and Lam, the

Indian jet crashes at storm-hit airport, 18 dead

Fierce rain and winds lashed a plane carrying 190 people before it crash-landed and tore in two at an airport in southern India, killing at least 18 people and injuring scores more, officials said yesterday. The Air India Express Boeing 737, on a special flight from Dubai to bring back Indians stranded by the COVID-19 pandemic, overshot the runway at Kozhikode International Airport in Kerala State late on Friday, plunged down an embankment and broke up. “Fuel had leaked out, so it was a miracle that the plane did not catch fire, the toll could have been much higher,” one senior emergency official at the scene said. Passenger Renjith Panangad, 34, recalled the plane touching the ground and then everything went “blank.” “After the crash, the emergency door opened and I dragged myself out somehow,” he told reporters from a hospital bed in Kozhikode. “The front part of the plane was gone — it was completely gone. I don’t know how I made it, but I’m grateful. I am still shaken.” The impact was so brutal that the nose of the Boeing 737 was left about 20m from the back half of the jet. “All that we could hear were screams all around. People were soaked in blood everywhere, some had fractures, some were unconscious,” said local resident Fazal Puthiyakath, who was among the first at the scene. Indian Minister of State for Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri put the latest death toll at 18. Authorities said that 22 people were in critical condition in hospital. The fatalities included the two pilots, as well as four children. Kozhikode is considered a tricky airport, as it has a table-top runway with a steep drop at one end. Heavy rains had been falling for several hours at Kozhikode as the jet landed. Indian media quoted air traffic control officials and a flight tracker

US drones deal in pipeline: sources

BOLSTERING DEFENSES: The deal would need the approval of the US Congress, which might receive formal notification as early as next month, two sources said

The US is negotiating the sale of at least four sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan for the first time, aircraft that can keep watch over huge swathes of sea and land, six US sources familiar with the negotiations said. The SeaGuardian surveillance drones have a range of 6,000 nautical miles (11,100km), far greater than the 300km range of Taiwan’s fleet of drones, potentially giving the nation greater capacity to peer into China, observing its air force, missiles and other facilities. While the US Department of State tacitly authorized the sale of the uncrewed aerial vehicles, two of the people said, it is not known whether the US officials have approved exporting the drones with weapons attached, one of them said. The deal must be approved by the US Congress, which might receive formal notification as soon as next month, two of the people said. Lawmakers could block a final agreement. After reports about a possible drone sale, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said that the US should stop arms sales to Taiwan to avoid affecting bilateral relations. US arms sales seriously violate the “one China” principle, Wang told a daily news conference. Republican and Democratic US senators on Thursday introduced legislation that would block the export, transfer or trade of many advanced drones to countries that are not close US allies — sales would be allowed to NATO members, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. A deal with Taiwan would be the first drone sale after US President Donald Trump’s administration moved ahead with its plan to sell more drones to more countries by reinterpreting an international arms control agreement called the Missile Technology Control Regime. Taiwan’s military is well-trained and well-equipped with mostly US-made hardware, but China has a huge numerical advantage and is adding advanced equipment of its own, including

Hong Kong charges 24 activists over Tiananmen vigil

INTENSIFIED CLAMPDOWN: The new charges are tied to an event held before China imposed the National Security Law on the territory at the end of June

Hong Kong police charged pro-democracy advocates, including Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), for taking part in a June vigil commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the latest move in an intensifying clampdown on the territory’s opposition movement. Hong Kong Legislative Council member Eddie Chu (朱凱迪), former student leader Lester Shum (岑敖暉) and leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China — which was formed during the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 — were also among those charged on Thursday for “knowingly taking part in an unauthorized assembly,” Cable TV reported, citing unidentified people. They are due in court on Sept. 15, it said. Police levied new charges on 24 people, including several who had already been charged in June with inciting the unauthorized assembly. Media tycoon and activist Jimmy Lai (黎智英) was among those charged in June, but was not handed an additional charge on Thursday. Some of those charged confirmed the news via their social media accounts, including Wong, who on Wednesday appeared in court on separate charges related to last year’s siege of the Hong Kong police headquarters. “Just 24 hours after I have left the court yesterday morning, I am now facing another charge by the government,” he wrote on Twitter. “Clearly, the regime plans to stage another crackdown on the city’s activists by all means.” Tens of thousands of people came out peacefully for this year’s vigil on June 4, defying the first government ban on the vigil in three decades due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government’s move is likely to fuel criticism that Beijing is trying to quash Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, following the disqualification of at least a dozen opposition candidates from now-delayed Legislative Council elections scheduled for Sept. 6. The charges are tied to an event held before China imposed a National Security Law on

June exports rise 0.4%, ending four months of decline

Taiwan’s exports last month rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier to US$28.2 billion, ending four months of declines, thanks to robust demand for electronics used in remote working and distance learning as COVID-19 infections spiked abroad, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The pickup was a pleasant surprise, as the ministry last month bet on a year-on-year retreat of 1.5 to 4 percent. “Semiconductors as well as information and communications products continued to benefit from 5G deployment and demand for laptops, desktops, tablets and TVs,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a news conference in Taipei. Shipments of electronic components expanded 15.5 percent to US$10.98 billion, advancing by a double-digit percentage for the eighth month in a row, Tsai said. Exports of semiconductors gained 16.6 percent, while capacitors and resistors soared 33.6 percent, the ministry’s report showed. Easing declines in the prices of raw materials, base metals and other non-tech products helped push overall exports into expansion mode, although they remained significantly cheaper from price levels a year earlier, Tsai said. The pickup in exports is likely an isolated episode, as this critical economic barometer might falter again, with a retreat of 0.5 to 2.5 percent this month and beyond, Tsai said. Export volume might improve quarter by quarter in the second half of this year on the back of the peak season, but would have difficulty beating last year’s results, Tsai said. “That is because the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and revived US-China trade tensions generate severe uncertainty,” Tsai said, adding that major technology firms have provided cautious guidance for this quarter and shy away from comments for next quarter due to poor order visibility. Shipments to China expanded 12.7 percent, while those to the US gained 7.8 percent, the report said. Exports to Europe, Japan and ASEAN markets have not picked up, but the pace of

By Crystal Hsu

Taiwan Friends promote Lee Teng-hui library dream

The Taiwan Friends Association yesterday suggested a fundraiser to help build a library named after late president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), a feat that would also help one of his dreams come true. Lee, who served as president from 1988 to 2000, died in Taipei on Thursday last week at the age of 97. While other countries have the custom of naming airports or other installations after previous presidents, it would be more difficult in Taiwan to rename an airport after Lee, association secretary-general Tsai Shu-mei (蔡淑美) said. However, a library could be named after him, which would serve as a commemoration and realize Lee’s dream of building a library, she said. Since stepping down as president in 2000, Lee had been entertaining the idea of establishing a library, sources said. Lee was very well-read and his private collection of books, not including the books in his study, filled an entire floor, the sources said. Negotiations with the Academia Historica and other groups began in 2005, with the plan being that the government would provide the land, with private companies handling the construction, sources said, adding that the original idea was to have the library managed by the government and the private sector. The Lee Teng-hui Foundation in 2013 tendered an official application — in line with the Act for Promotion of Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects (促進民間參與公共建設法) — to construct the Lee Teng-hui Library in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水). However, after talk show pundits said it was a bid by then-New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) to help the former president profit, Lee called the project off, incensed that a library intended to serve the public could be seen as political profiteering, sources said. People close to Lee said that constructing a library in Lee’s name would be a meaningful project and pledged to give the

By Wen Yu-te and Jake Chung

Trump orders target Chinese owners of TikTok and WeChat

US President Donald Trump has announced sweeping restrictions against Chinese-owned social media giants TikTok and WeChat, his latest explosive move aimed at countering China’s rising global power. Trump on Thursday signed executive orders giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with the Chinese platforms, effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of viral video sensation TikTok to Microsoft Corp. Trump cited national security concerns for the moves, which also threw into doubt the US operations of WeChat’s parent firm, Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), a powerful player in the video gaming industry and one of the world’s richest companies. Trump has taken an increasingly heavy hammer to US relations with China, challenging it on trade, military and economic fronts, and Thursday’s effort provoked more outrage in Beijing. The new restrictions sent Tencent shares into a spin, with the issue tanking as much as 10 percent at one point in Hong Kong trade, wiping almost US$50 billion off its market capitalization. Asian markets also took note, with investors concerned about increasingly bitter relations between the economic titans, which some fear could lead to a renewal of their painful trade dispute. Officials from both sides are due to meet on Saturday next week to review a trade deal signed earlier this year. “TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories,” Trump’s order said. Data could potentially be used by China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers on people for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage, the order said. Beijing slammed the move as “arbitrary political manipulation and suppression” and said that it would come at the expense of US users and companies. TikTok said in a statement that it would “pursue all remedies available to us in order

Protest to decry Chinese student rules

‘CROSS-STRAIT CONSIDERATIONS’: Groups said that the Ministry of Education’s policies excluded Chinese and students should not be blocked over political issues

The Taiwan International Student Movement yesterday said it would protest today outside the Ministry of Education in Taipei against a policy that excludes some Chinese students from returning to Taiwan amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since June 17, the ministry has allowed foreign students from 19 “low risk” and “medium-low risk” countries and regions to enter Taiwan. On July 22, it announced that it was relaxing restrictions to include students from all countries and regions who are graduating this semester and on Wednesday it further expanded entry to students enrolled in degree programs. A letter sent by the ministry on Wednesday to universities did not exclude students from China. However, speaking to reporters later that day, Deputy Minister of Education Lio Mon-chi (劉孟奇) said that due to “cross-strait related” considerations, only Chinese students who are graduating this semester would be allowed to return. The students’ group criticized the policy on Facebook, calling the exclusion of Chinese students an example of politics overriding the right to study. Another students’ group said that only students from China, Hong Kong and Macau have been subjected to the most stringent entry restrictions, while students from many high-risk countries and regions have be allowed to enter Taiwan. Chinese students should not been blocked due to political factors, the second group said. Quarantine-related costs for overseas students are too high, both groups said, adding that staying at a disease prevention hotel for 15 days, and paying for meals, could cost several tens of thousands of New Taiwan dollars. The ministry should subsidize these costs for overseas students, especially those with financial troubles, the groups said. Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) yesterday said that since Taiwan on July 20 opened the door to Chinese students who are to graduate this semester, only 29 of approximately 3,000 who qualify have returned. The council doubts whether Chinese authorities would

NTU accused of limiting student reporters, input

RULES WANTED: An NCCU professor said it remains to be seen whether NTU is behind the times or if the problem would be fixed by improved communication

National Taiwan University (NTU) has limited student attendance at university affairs meetings and attempted to influence articles written by student reporters, NTU Students’ Association president Yang Tzu-ang (楊子昂) said yesterday. Yang told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that a petition calling for student reporters to be allowed to attend one of the meetings on Oct. 24 was launched on Wednesday. A student reporter who had been critical of NTU after a meeting last year had been called in by the university to “have a chat,” which was an attempt to force the student to alter their article, the association said. NTU has been conservative about sharing information and it could even be said that it is resisting, as it has refused to allow livestreams of the meetings and has barred student reporters from post-meeting news conferences, Yang said. Yang said that she did not understand what the university was afraid of and it should not rigorously control students’ efforts to understand how NTU makes decisions. “Is the university dismissive of students, or is there something that would not stand up to public scrutiny?” she asked. Yang called on NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) to respond to the appeals and “shoulder the responsibility that NTU has as a university to educate its students.” NTU must stop oppressing student journalism and not attempt to alter students’ reporting, the association said, adding that it should work with students to establish a clear set of rules, standards and procedures that would recognize student journalism while ensuring that student journalists are notified of events and retain the right to conduct interviews. NTU is sidestepping the issue of it selectively overlooking student reporters and trying to isolate them, Yang said, referring to NTU on Wednesday saying that it had issued a notice on the matter. “It might seem like the university

By Peng Wan-hsin and Jake Chung

Stop pointing fingers, MOFA spokeswoman tells China

The Chinese government should tackle its internal problems before pointing fingers at others, given that it has become a “global troublemaker,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said yesterday, after Beijing criticized a planned visit to Taiwan by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar. Azar’s delegation is to arrive on Sunday, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. After the US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that Azar would lead a delegation to Taiwan “in the coming days,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said that Beijing had voiced its serious concerns about the trip to Washington and called on the US to stop any government-to-government interaction with Taiwan. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) accused the Democratic Progressive Party of scheming with the US for its own political interests, which were “dangerous and detrimental” to the common benefits of people across the Taiwan Strait. Asked about those remarks, Ou told a briefing at the ministry in Taipei that Taiwan is a sovereignty nation and that China has no right to intervene in its interactions with the US or other like-minded countries. Beijing should look at its own problems before it criticizes other countries, she said. The Chinese government has become a global troublemaker, as its concealment of the initial COVID-19 cases led to a global pandemic that now has 18 million confirmed cases and 700,000 fatalities, she said. China continues to provoke disputes with other nations, including Taiwan, Japan and India, while expanding its military establishments in the South China Sea, which not only sabotages the “status quo,” but causes regional tension, she said. Internally, it continues to suppress the freedoms of its citizens in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well as the religious freedoms of Christians and Muslims, Ou said. The Chinese government should

By Lu Yi-hsuan

French president visits site of blast in Beirut

French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday visited shell-shocked Beirut, pledging support and urging change after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. “Lebanon is not alone,” Macron wrote on Twitter on arrival, before pledging that Paris would coordinate international relief efforts after the colossal blast killed at least 137 people, wounded thousands and caused massive damage. However, Macron also warned that Lebanon — which is already mired in a deep economic crisis, in desperate need of a bailout and torn by political turmoil — would “continue to sink” unless it swiftly implements reforms. Macron visited Beirut’s harborside blast zone, now a wasteland of blackened ruins, rubble and charred debris where a 140m-wide crater has filled with seawater. Macron’s visit to the small Mediterranean country, France’s Middle East protege and former colonial-era protectorate, was the first by a foreign head of state since Tuesday’s explosion. Two days on, Lebanon was still reeling from a blast so huge it was felt in neighboring countries, its mushroom-shaped cloud drawing comparisons with the Hiroshima atom bomb. Offering a glimmer of hope amid the carnage, a French rescuer said there was a “good chance of finding ... people alive,” especially a group believed to be trapped in a room under the rubble. “We are looking for seven or eight missing people, who could be stuck in a control room buried by the explosion,” the colonel leading a rescue team told Macron as he surveyed the site. According to several officials, the explosion was caused by a fire igniting 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored for years in a ramshackle portside warehouse. Even as they counted their dead and cleaned up the streets, many Lebanese were boiling with anger over a blast they see as the most shocking expression yet of their leadership’s incompetence. “We can’t bear

Hiroshima marks 75 years since atomic bomb fell

Bells tolled in Hiroshima, Japan, yesterday for the 75th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, with ceremonies downsized due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the city’s mayor urging nations to reject selfish nationalism and unite to fight all threats. Thousands usually pack Peace Park in the center of the city to pray, sing and offer paper cranes as a symbol of peace, but entry was sharply limited, and only survivors and their families could attend the memorial ceremony. The city said the significance of the anniversary of the bombing that killed 140,000 people before the end of 1945 had prompted its decision to hold the ceremony despite the spread of the virus, while taking strict precautions. “On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city. Rumor at the time had it that ‘nothing will grow here for 75 years,’” Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said. “And yet, Hiroshima recovered, becoming a symbol of peace.” At 8:15am on Aug. 6, 1945, US B-29 warplane the Enola Gay dropped a bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” and obliterated the city with an estimated population of 350,000, where thousands more died later from injuries and radiation-related illnesses. Yesterday, as cicadas shrilled in the heavy summer heat and the Peace Bell sounded, the crowd stood to observe a moment of silence at the exact time the bomb exploded. “When the 1918 flu pandemic attacked a century ago, it took tens of millions of lives and terrorized the world because nations fighting World War I were unable to meet the threat together,” Matsui said. “A subsequent upsurge in nationalism led to World War II and the atomic bombings. We must never allow this painful past to repeat itself. Civil society must reject self-centered nationalism and unite against all threats.”

Top US health official to visit Taiwan

ALEX AZAR: The first visit by a head of the Department of Health and Human Services would strictly observe the CECC’s special regulations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said

US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar is to lead a delegation to Taiwan — the highest-level visit by a US Cabinet official since the two sides cut formal relations in 1979. The plan was announced yesterday morning by the US Department of Health and Human Services and confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). Beijing has expressed its concerns to Washington, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said later yesterday. Taiwan and the US only issued statements saying that the visit would happen “in the coming days.” MOFA said that due to security concerns, it would not disclose Azar’s schedule, except to say that he would visit President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) — which is headed by Chen — and meet with Taiwanese health experts. Azar’s trip marks the first visit to Taiwan by an HHS secretary, the first Cabinet member to visit in six years and the highest-level visit by a US Cabinet official since 1979, the department said in a news release. The visit is part of a US policy to send high-level US officials to Taiwan to reaffirm bilateral ties under the US’ Taiwan Travel Act, which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump in 2018, it said. The last publicly known visit by a US Cabinet official was by then-US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy in 2014, the Central News Agency reported. “I look forward to conveying President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s global health leadership and underscoring our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health,” Azar was quoted as saying in the department’s statement. “This trip represents an opportunity to strengthen our economic and public

By Lin Chia-nan

Beirut reels from explosion at port felt 240km away

‘THE APOCALYPSE’: The blast leveled buildings that were within several hundred meters, with video showing a ball of fire, smoke and a gigantic white shockwave

Rescuers yesterday searched for survivors in Beirut after a cataclysmic explosion at the port sowed devastation across entire neighborhoods, killing more than 100 people, wounding thousands and plunging Lebanon deeper into crisis. The blast, which appeared to have been caused by a fire igniting 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate left unsecured in a warehouse, was felt as far away as Cyprus, about 240km to the northwest. Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud described the explosion as “an apocalyptic situation” that he estimated might have made 300,000 people temporarily homeless and would cost the country in excess of US$3 billion. The scale of the destruction was such that the Lebanese capital resembled the scene of an earthquake, with thousands of people left homeless and thousands more cramming into overwhelmed hospitals for treatment. “A massacre. I saw people screaming, covered in blood, homes broken, glass shattered, roads that look like Hiroshima or like a tsunami hit,” said Elie Zakaria, a resident of a neighborhood close to the port. In those areas, the amount of destruction caused by the long years of civil war between 1975 and 1990 was achieved in a second by a blast that leveled buildings within a radius of several hundred meters. A resident of Mar Mikhail, one of the most affected neighborhoods, said she saw bodies strewn in the middle of the street, apparently thrown off balconies and rooftops by the blast. Many people were watching and filming with their phones after an earlier and smaller explosion was heard in the port and ignited a fire. The resulting footage, which was widely shared on social media, shows a ball of fire and smoke rising above Beirut and a white shockwave engulfing everything around it. The mushroom-shaped explosion — which seismologists said was logged as the equivalent of a magnitude 3.3 quake — and the scope of the damage drew

Virus Outbreak: Departees test positive in Japan, HK

A Japanese man on Saturday tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to Japan from Taiwan, and a Hong Kong man who returned to the territory tested positive on Sunday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) told a news conference yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that it was informed by the Japanese government via its National Focal Point, a communication portal within the WHO’s International Health Regulations, that a man who returned from Taiwan tested positive for the virus, although he was asymptomatic. The man is an engineer in his 30s who entered Taiwan on June 15 and remained in isolation until June 29 before working at an office in northern Taiwan, Chen said, adding that the man was tested for COVID-19 upon arrival in Japan. Contact tracing was initiated upon receiving the information and 80 people who had close contact with the man have been identified, including people he encountered at his workplace, hotel, shops and on the same flight to Taiwan, Chen said. As of yesterday afternoon, 36 of the contacts have been ordered into isolation at home and eight had departed Taiwan, while 71 of the 72 still in the nation have been tested for the virus, he said. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests of 39 people were negative, while the remainder were still being evaluated, he said, adding that 33 people returned negative results in antibody tests, with the remainder still being evaluated. The CECC closed two other investigations after a student tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to Japan in late June and a migrant worker tested positive after returning to Thailand late last month, he said, adding that the cases were not a threat locally. Tests on close contacts and others considered at higher risk in the two closed investigations were all negative,

By Lee I-chia

Seeds, soil from China prompt warning

Nine cases of unsolicited packages containing seeds or soil from China have been reported, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday. Following similar reports in the US, Japan and other countries, the council from Tuesday to Friday last week received nine reports, COA Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) told a news conference in Taipei. The packages were destroyed, Chen said. Six of the packages contained grass, rose, lotus, fishpole bamboo or brassica seeds, which were delivered along with products ordered through e-commerce Web sites Taobao (淘寶), a Chinese site, Shopee, a Singaporean site, or Facebook, council data showed. The two Facebook orders were made by people who ordered seeds and expected them to be locally sourced, but received seeds from China, Chen said. The other three packages contained fertilizer or soil, including two attached with ordered products and one sent by itself, he said. Further investigation is needed to determine how the packages passed customs inspections and whether brokerage firms breached the Plant Protection and Quarantine Act (植物防疫檢疫法), Chen said. A total of 198 illegal packages of plants and related products have been intercepted this year, excluding the nine cases, he said. Soil and seeds from unknown sources might contain nematodes, pests, pathogenic bacteria or viruses that could devastate Taiwan’s agricultural production, Chen said, adding that people who receive suspicious parcels should immediately inform the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health, Inspection and Quarantine. All parcels from overseas are X-rayed at ports, a measure adopted after African swine fever broke out in China in 2018, he said. The council has asked the Chinese Non-Store Retailer Association to remind online retailers not to send seeds as gifts, and if they sell such products, sources should be specified, bureau Deputy Director Chou Hui-chuan (鄒慧娟) said. People caught illegally importing plants and related products face a prison term of up to three years or a

By Lin Chia-nan

Australian PM says US-China war no longer unthinkable

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday said that his government held a less dramatic view of US-China strategic tensions than a predecessor who warned of a potential “hot war” before the US presidential election in November. Former Australian prime minister and China academic Kevin Rudd wrote in Foreign Affairs this week that the risk of armed conflict between the US and China in the next three months was “especially high.” Morrison said his administration had expressed similar views in a defense policy update last month. “Our defense update expresses it differently and certainly not as dramatically as Kevin, but in our own defense update, we’ve acknowledged that what was previously inconceivable and not considered even possible or likely in terms of those types of outcomes is not considered in those contexts anymore,” Morrison told the Aspen Security Forum in an online address from the Australian capital, Canberra. Meanwhile, Australian federal police raided the home and office of a man employed by an Australian politician as part of a foreign interference investigation into whether he was working to advance “Chinese state interests,” court documents showed. The disclosure is made in documents lodged on Monday in Australia’s High Court by the employee, John Zhang (張智森), who is seeking to quash the search warrants used by police and the return of seized computer evidence. Zhang, who could not be reached for comment, has not been charged with any offense. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment yesterday. The documents said that Zhang is an Australian citizen who migrated from China in 1989 and had been employed by New South Wales state politician Shaoquett Moselmane since 2018. Moselmane, who has been suspended from the NSW Labor party following the raids, has previously said he had not done anything wrong and was not a suspect. According to details of the search warrants