Connect with us
Hundreds of academics in Taiwan published an open letter on Wednesday urging voters to vote “no” in an upcoming referendum that proposes to reverse a policy of phasing out nuclear power.
Alongside local elections on Nov. 24, Taiwan will simultaneously hold 10 referendums, including one about nuclear power.
The referendum proposed to abolish a clause of the Electricity Act that was added in 2017, which stipulated that Taiwan’s nuclear power plants would be shut down by 2025.
Initiators of the referendum argue that nuclear power is safe and clean.
The letter, endorsed by 559 academics including Nobel Chemistry Prize laureate Lee Yuan-Tseh, urged the public to vote to keep the clause.
The letter stressed the dangers posed by Taiwan’s nuclear plants and unresolved radioactive waste problems.
Taiwan’s nuclear waste has piled up at three ageing power plants and at a 36-year-old interim storage facility on Orchid Island, an offshore islet in eastern Taiwan.
Chen Wen-shan, a geoscientist at National Taiwan University, told a news conference that recent surveys revealed that the earthquake-prone island’s nuclear power plants sit very close to active faults.
“Regarding nuclear safety issues, you can’t bargain,’’ Chen said, adding that the threats posed by tsunamis to nuclear power plants were not seriously studied until Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, since her inauguration in May 2016, has called for 20 per cent of the island’s power to come from renewable sources by 2025 as part of an effort to phase out nuclear power.
Edited by: Abiodun Oluleye/Grace Yussuf
(NAN)
Hundreds of academics in Taiwan published an open letter on Wednesday urging voters to vote “no” in an upcoming referendum that proposes to reverse a policy of phasing out nuclear power.
Alongside local elections on Nov. 24, Taiwan will simultaneously hold 10 referendums, including one about nuclear power.
The referendum proposed to abolish a clause of the Electricity Act that was added in 2017, which stipulated that Taiwan’s nuclear power plants would be shut down by 2025.
Initiators of the referendum argue that nuclear power is safe and clean.
The letter, endorsed by 559 academics including Nobel Chemistry Prize laureate Lee Yuan-Tseh, urged the public to vote to keep the clause.
The letter stressed the dangers posed by Taiwan’s nuclear plants and unresolved radioactive waste problems.
Taiwan’s nuclear waste has piled up at three ageing power plants and at a 36-year-old interim storage facility on Orchid Island, an offshore islet in eastern Taiwan.
Chen Wen-shan, a geoscientist at National Taiwan University, told a news conference that recent surveys revealed that the earthquake-prone island’s nuclear power plants sit very close to active faults.
“Regarding nuclear safety issues, you can’t bargain,’’ Chen said, adding that the threats posed by tsunamis to nuclear power plants were not seriously studied until Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, since her inauguration in May 2016, has called for 20 per cent of the island’s power to come from renewable sources by 2025 as part of an effort to phase out nuclear power.
Edited by: Abiodun Oluleye/Grace Yussuf
(NAN)
The U.S. on Wednesday expressed grave concerns over non-peaceful means of deciding Taiwan’s future by China, Brent Christensen, the director of the United States’ de facto embassy in Taipei said.
Earlier this month, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to boost national security and said her government would not submit to Chinese suppression.
“Any effort to determine Taiwan’s future by other than peaceful means…is of grave concern to the United States,” Christensen told newsmen.
He did not elaborate.
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has boosted military and diplomatic pressure on Taipei.
The Chinese military has stepped up encirclement drills around Taiwan, which the island has denounced as intimidation, and three former allies, El Salvador, Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic, switched ties to Beijing this year.
The U. S. new 256-million dollars representative office in Taiwan’s capital is an “important symbol” of their partnership, Christensen said, adding that Washington would keep backing Taiwan’s “substantive role” in the international community.
China has been infuriated by recent U.S. sanctions on its military, among several flashpoints in ties ranging from a bitter trade war and the issue of Taiwan to China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.
Last week, the United States sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait in its second such operation this year, despite opposition from China.
In Beijing, a spokesman for China’s policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said the Taiwan issue was about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“We resolutely opposed any official exchanges or military contacts between the U.S. side and the Taiwan region,” Ma Xiaoguang told a news conference shortly before Christensen’s comments.
“I would like here to stress again – the consequences will be reaped by relying on foreigners to build yourselves up, or colluding with foreign forces to damage peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he added, referring to Taiwan’s government.
SH
Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Thursday that Chinese army will take action “at any cost” to foil attempts to separate the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.
Beijing has been infuriated by recent U.S. sanctions on its military, one of a growing number of flash points in ties with Washington that include a bitter trade war, Taiwan and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.
On Monday, the U.S. sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait in the second such operation this year and the latest in a series of gestures made by the White House in support of democratic Taiwan.
“The Taiwan issue is related to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and touches upon China’s core interests.
“On this issue, it is extremely dangerous to repeatedly challenge China’s bottom line.
“If someone tries to separate out Taiwan (from China), China’s army will take the necessary actions at any cost,” Fenghe said at the opening of the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, which China styles as its answer to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.
China-Taiwan relations have deteriorated since the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, swept to power in 2016.
Beijing, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has also viewed U.S. overtures toward the island with alarm.
This includes a new de facto embassy in Beijing and passage of a law to encourage visits by U.S. officials.
“China’s military ties with the U.S. are important and sensitive, China will never give up an inch of its territory.
“Beijing opposed displays of strength and provocation in the South China Sea by “nations from outside the region” carried out under the pretence of protecting freedom of flight and navigation,” Wei said.
The world’s two largest economies needed to deepen high-level ties so as to navigate tension and rein in the risk of inadvertent conflict, U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told his Chinese counterpart recently.
Mattis saw firsthand in September on how mounting Sino-U.S. friction can undermine military contacts, when Beijing upended plans for him to meet Wei in before October ending.
Edited by: Celine-Damilola Oyewole
(NAN)
The United States sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Monday in the second of such operation this year, amid China tensions.
The warships passed through Taiwan Strait as the U.S. military increases the frequency of transits through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.
The voyage risks further heightening tensions with China but will likely be viewed in self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support by President Donald Trump’s government, amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
Reuters was first to report U.S. consideration of the sensitive operation on Oct. 20.
“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Commander Nate Christensen, deputy spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in a statement.
“The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” he added.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it closely monitored the operation and was able to “maintain the security of the seas and the airspace’’ as it occurred.
There was no immediate comment from China.
The U.S. Navy conducted a similar mission in the strait’s international waters in July, which had been the first such voyage in about a year.
The latest operation shows the U.S. Navy is increasing the pace of strait passages.
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan, but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms.
The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than 15 billion dollars in weaponry since 2010.
China views Taiwan as a wayward province and has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island.
It raised concerns over U.S. policy toward Taiwan in talks earlier with U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis in Singapore.
As the United States prepared for a fresh passage through the strait, it told China’s military that its overall policy toward Taiwan was unchanged.
Mattis delivered that message to China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe personally on Oct. 18, on the sidelines of an Asian security forum.
“Minister Wei raised Taiwan and concerns about our policy. The Secretary reassured Minister Wei that we haven’t changed our Taiwan policy, our one China policy,” Randall Schriver, a U.S. assistant secretary of defence who helps guide Pentagon policy in Asia, told reporters traveling with Mattis.
“So it was, I think, a familiar exchange’’.
Taiwan is only one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a bitter trade war, U.S. sanctions, and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.
Taiwan’s relations with China have deteriorated since the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party swept to power in 2016.
Beijing, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, responded to the July passage with a warning to the United States to avoid jeopardising “peace and stability’’ in the strategic waterway.
It has also viewed U.S. overtures toward Taiwan with alarm, including its unveiling a new de facto embassy in Taiwan and passage of the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages U.S. officials to visit the island.
Military experts say the balance of power between Taiwan and China has shifted decisively in China’s favour in recent years, and China could easily overwhelm the island unless U.S. forces came quickly to Taiwan’s aid.
China has also alarmed Taiwan by ramping up military exercises this year, including flying bombers and other military aircraft around the island and sending its aircraft carrier through the narrow Taiwan Strait separating it from Taiwan.
Edited by: Abigael Joshua/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu
(NAN)
Execution
Taipei, Aug. 31, 2018 A Taiwanese death row inmate who killed his ex-wife and daughter in 2014 was executed by shooting in Southern Taiwan on Friday, the Justice Ministry said.
It was the first execution since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in May 2016.
“We respect the decision made by the Ministry of Justice,’’ presidential spokesman Alex Huang said in a statement.
Deputy Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang said that the execution was carried out to ensure both social justice and human rights.
“People should not falsely believe that, in this country, you won’t be sentenced to death if you kill someone or the death penalty won’t be carried out,’’ Chen told a news conference.
According to the ministry, in April 2014, the 41-year-old man stabbed his ex-wife to death and then killed his 6-year-old daughter by burning charcoal in a car.
Dozens of activists from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty and other non-governmental organisations protested outside the ministry.
“The right to life is one of fundamental human rights,’’ Wu Jia-zhen of the alliance told a news conference, stressing that the right should be protected by law.
Chiu E-ling, secretary general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said the government approved the execution at this very moment in order to gain more votes in the coming local elections in late November.
In Taiwan, the last death penalty was carried out on May 10, 2016, when a Taiwanese university student who stabbed to death four subway passengers in May 2014 was executed.
Edited by: Abigael Joshua/Ejike Obeta
(NAN)
Tensions
Taipei, Aug. 20, 2018 Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, said on Monday that the self-ruled island would not bow to pressure after her high-profile trip to Latin America.
Tsai equally said that Taiwan would not bow as a result of stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has ramped up military and diplomatic pressure in an attempt to assert Chinese sovereignty over the island, even as the U.S. government makes fresh overtures to it.
In March, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act a non-binding bill encouraging the United States to send senior officials to Taiwan to meet Taiwanese counterparts.
While Tsai was not invited to the United States for an official visit, she met U.S. senators while she was there, attended banquets with overseas Taiwanese and spoke of the need for strong ties with Washington.
The number of countries that now officially recognise Taiwan has been whittled down to 18, following moves by Burkina Faso in West Africa and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean region to formally switch relations to China from Taiwan this year.
“Taiwan would not bow to pressure. Pressure would only make us more determined and united. It would only boost our determination to go abroad,’’ Tsai said at Taiwan’s international airport upon arrival late on Monday after the nine-day trip.
Though she did not elaborate, Tsai said during talks with heads of state during the trip, she had “demonstrated Taiwan’s determination for the value of freedom and democracy,’’.
China, which believes Tsai wants to push for Taiwan’s formal independence, has already complained to Washington about her U.S. stopovers on the arrival and departure legs of her trip to Paraguay and Belize in the past two weekends.
Democratic Taiwan is one of China’s most sensitive territorial issues and Tsai’s U.S. stopovers in the United States, a customary practice for Taiwanese presidents, came amid an increasingly bitter trade war between Beijing and Washington.
While the United States has no formal ties with Taiwan, it is its main supplier of arms and military hardware, and its strongest unofficial diplomatic backer.
In a sign of the geo-political tensions, a Taiwan bakery chain with numerous branches in China disappeared from major Chinese food apps amid calls for a boycott after Tsai stopped by for a coffee at one of its stores in Los Angeles
In response, Tsai earlier urged people in Taiwan to remain united and she remained defiant in the face of Beijing’s pressure.
“My administration will continue strengthening every aspect of #Taiwan-#U.S. relations. Until next time!” Tsai tweeted upon her departure from a U.S. airport earlier on Monday, along with a photo of her holding hands with James F. Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan.
Edited by: Abigael Joshua/Felix Ajide
(NAN)
Defence
Beijing, Aug. 14, 2018China on Tuesday condemned measures targeting it in a new U.S.
defence act, saying it would comprehensively assess aspects that beef up the role of a panel
tasked with reviewing foreign investment proposals.
China’s complaints about the act come as the world’s two biggest economies engage in an
increasingly bitter fight over trade, levying tariffs on each others’ products.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a 716-billion dollars defenxe policy act on Monday
that authorises military spending and waters down controls on U.S. government contracts
with China’s ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
The National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA), strengthens the Committee on Foreign Investment in
the U.S. (CFIUS), which reviews proposals to determine if they threaten national security.
That measure was seen as targeting China.
China’s Commerce Ministry said it had noted the inclusion of CFIUS in the act and would “comprehensively
assess the contents”, paying close attention to the impact on Chinese firms.
“The U.S. side should objectively and fairly treat Chinese investors, and avoid CFIUS becoming an obstacle
to investment cooperation between Chinese and U.S. firms,” the ministry said in a statement.
Chinese and U.S. companies seek greater cooperation on investment, it added, urging the two countries’
governments to heed the voices of their companies, and provide a good environment and stable
expectations.
Monday’s legislation also calls “long-term strategic competition with China” a top priority for the
U.S., which should improve the defence capabilities of self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as a
wayward province.
In a separate statement, China’s foreign ministry said the U. S. passed the act in spite of China’s
strong objections and it was dissatisfied with the “negative content related to China”.
The ministry said that China urges the U. S. to abandon Cold War thinking and correctly and
objectively view relations, and not implement the act’s negative clauses about China, so as to avoid
harming cooperation.
Taiwan thanked the U.S. for its consistent support.
Taiwan would “continue to actively coordinate with the U.S. government to stably deepen the security
partnership between Taiwan and the United States on a mutually beneficial basis”, Taiwan’s foreign
ministry said.
The U.S. has no formal ties with Taiwan but is the island’s strongest ally and sole foreign arms supplier.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is visiting the United States this month, stopping off first in Los
Angeles and then in Houston on her way to and from Paraguay and Belize.
China has complained to Washington about the visits.
SH
China on Tuesday urged the U.S. not to allow Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to transit its territory when she visits Belize and Paraguay in August.
That statement according to the report has added to the tension between Beijing and Washington that has worsened amid a trade war.
Beijing considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province of “one China”, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.
China regularly calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue between it and the U.S., and Beijing always complains to Washington about transit stops by Taiwanese presidents.
Taiwan’s government on Monday announced that Tsai would travel to and from its two diplomatic allies via the U.S., standard procedure for visits by Taiwanese presidents to Latin America.
Taiwan’s Presidential Office said Tsai would be stopping off in Los Angeles and Houston, though did not provide exact dates.
Speaking at a daily news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had already lodged solemn representations with Washington about the planned transits.
“We have consistently and resolutely opposed the U.S. or other countries with which China has diplomatic relations arranging this kind of transit.
China urged the U.S. “not to allow the transit of the leader of the Taiwan region, and not send any wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces,” Geng said.
China has been peeling away the number of countries which maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, amid a concerted effort to pressure Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party espouses independence for the island, a red line for China.
The timing of Tsai’s August visits to the U.S. comes amid an increasingly bitter trade war between China and the U.S.
While the U.S. has no formal ties with Taiwan, it is the island’s main source of arms and strongest unofficial diplomatic backer, to Beijing’s anger.
Taiwan has official relations with just 18 countries worldwide, many of them poor nations in Central America and the Pacific such as Nicaragua and Nauru.
Taiwan has accused China of using dollar diplomacy to lure away its allies, promising generous aid packages, charges China has denied.
Edited by: Celine-DamilolaOyewole/Felix Ajide
(NAN)
China opened an Embassy in Burkina Faso on Thursday, two months after the poor, landlocked West African country cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The move to sever relations with Taiwan in May followed Chinese pressure on African countries to break with what it regards as a wayward province all of which have now done so except the kingdom of Swaziland.
“The government (of China) attaches great importance to this relationship and intends to be a privileged partner for the development of Burkina Faso,’’ visiting Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua said at a ceremony to mark the opening.
China has launched a determined campaign over the past two years to lure Taiwan’s last few diplomatic allies away, as it seeks to prevent President Tsai Ing-wen from pushing for the island’s formal independence.
It is also Africa’s largest trade partner, with massive investments in mining, construction and banking.
When Burkina Faso decided to fall into line with the anti-Taiwan policy, its foreign ministry said it had been “pushed’’ into it by the country’s “socio-economic challenges’’.
Edited by: Abigael Joshua/Felix Ajide
(NAN)
