content_text:
太倉2026年1月28日 /美通社/ — 1月26日，全新新能源品牌LEPAS在太倉港碼頭完成出口發運作業，首批逾500台LEPAS L4車型正式裝船啟運，發往南非德班港。

南非是非洲整車市場的關鍵樞紐之一，同時也是全球主要右舵市場之一，其完善的港口和物流網絡，使其成為海外品牌拓展非洲的重要門戶。本次發運的LEPAS L4，基於奇瑞集團的全新LEX智能化平台打造，車身尺寸為4400×1820×1635mm，軸距為2700mm。從消費端來看，LEPAS L4契合全球汽車市場在新能源的轉型趨勢下，消費者對高品質新能源汽車的潛在需求；從品牌端來看，本次也標志著產品已具備在復雜路況下，為不同駕駛習慣的用戶帶來優雅駕控體驗的能力。通過真實市場的導入與用戶反饋，LEPAS將逐步完善產品與服務體系，為後續市場拓展與品牌進步積累經驗。

此次首批車輛抵達德班港後，LEPAS將以此為戰略基點，充分利用南非的整車流通體系、港口和物流網絡進行市場拓展。並在保持自身優勢的基礎上，踐行集團「In Somewhere，For Somewhere，Be Somewhere」戰略，持續深耕本地化運營與產品創新，打造非洲消費者需要的更智能與優雅的新能源出行選擇。

南非只是LEPAS向全球市場拓展的一個起點，LEPAS將持續在全球不同大洲的不同國家引入產品、網絡、品牌、售後等系列運營體系，將優雅生活方式的品牌理念、配套的基礎設施、前沿的新能源技術以及新能源汽車產業關聯的就業機會帶到全球，成為全球新能源出行生態中的長期參與者。

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title: LEPAS L4啟運南非，LEPAS加速全球市場布局


title: 苗栗後龍大排驚見235隻雞屍 採樣檢出H5N1禽流感！

events: 禽流感 疫情

taiwan-subdivisions: 後龍 苗栗 苗栗縣 外埔

content_text:
地方中心／綜合報導

苗栗後龍外埔大排水溝驚見大量死雞，動物保護防疫所獲報後，立即採樣送檢，今（28）天證實該死雞確診H5N1亞型高病原性禽流感，苗栗縣長鍾東錦指示徹查棄置雞屍行為人，並依違反《動物傳染病防治條例》以最高罰則重罰100萬元，同時採取嚴密防疫作為，全面防堵疫情破口。

苗栗動保所說明，大排水溝發現遭棄置雞屍共235隻，26日接獲民眾通報後，第一時間即啟動防疫應變機制，完成包括現場清點指定化製清運、採樣送驗及擴大清消周邊全面消毒等處置措施；27日接續針對周邊3公里內10場養禽場進行健康訪視，結果雞隻健康狀況良好，另同步協助場區周邊消毒，輔導業者加強場區及車輛消毒，落實自主防疫與生物安全管理；28日繼續完成3公里內養禽場採樣送檢。

縣府表示，非法棄置病死禽隻已涉嫌違反《動物傳染病防治條例》第 12 條規定，循線追查並已掌握行為人，初步指向台中地區的養禽場，已密切與台中相關單位聯繫中。

鍾東錦得知不肖業者無視法規棄置病死雞隻，漠視防疫工作並挑戰公權力，立即指示業務主管單位依法徹查行為人身分，並依相關法規處以最高100萬元罰鍰，從嚴辦理、絕不寬貸，以確保防疫體系完整與公共安全。


title: Taiwan, US talk AI at high-level forum

content_text:
STAY CONNECTED:  Taiwanese and US officials also discussed digital infrastructure, including developing low Earth orbit satellites and how to protect undersea cables

Senior Taiwanese and US officials on Tuesday discussed cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI), tech and drones at a high-level forum, with the US Department of State praising Taipei as a “vital partner.”

Taiwan was represented by Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) at the meeting in Washington, while US Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg represented the US, the state department said.

It was the sixth edition of the US-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue since November 2020 and the first since US President Donald Trump returned to office last year.

US Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, left, Representative to the US Alexander Yui, second right, and Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin, right, pose for a photograph after signing statements on the Pax Silica Declaration in Washington on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The two sides signed statements on the Pax Silica Declaration — a US-led initiative to secure AI and semiconductor supply chains — and Taiwan-US cooperation on economic security, the state department said.

The agreements demonstrate Taiwan’s critical role in the global AI supply chain, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a separate statement.

“Taiwan is a vital partner on these and other important economic initiatives and its advanced manufacturing sector plays a key role in fueling the AI revolution,” the state department added.

Pax Silica is a US-led initiative focused on coordinating trusted supply chains for advanced technologies. Its initial eight signatories did not include Taiwan, the world’s leading producer of advanced semiconductors.

One of the areas of consensus at the meeting was on advocating for Taiwanese and US companies to partner on AI, advanced robotics and the development of large language model applications for traditional Mandarin language databanks, the ministry said.

Officials also focused on digital infrastructure, agreeing to explore low Earth orbit satellite development, and how to protect submarine cables and strengthen information and communications infrastructure, it said.

Taiwan has accused China of being involved in damaging undersea telecom and Internet cables, which Beijing denies, and is expanding the use of low Earth orbit satellites for backup communications should China sever the cables during an attack.

The ministry said that both sides agreed that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are “crucial to global economic security and prosperity.”

Taiwan and the US would also collaborate on critical mineral exploration and refining, as well as strengthening cooperation in drone supply chains to reduce dependence on China, it said.

Before the talks, the government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute signed an agreement with the US-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International on drone cooperation.

Others areas targeted for cooperation were cultivating AI talent, promoting regional economic development, expediting investment application reviews and addressing double taxation issues, the ministry said.

Taiwan and the US earlier this month reached a deal to reduce tariffs on Taiwan’s exports to the US, and boost Taiwanese investment in semiconductors and other sectors in the country.


title: Coast guard flags about 1,900 Chinese vessels

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MAKING WAVES:  China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said

About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday.

Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said.

The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as the ministry tracked vessels that participated in the exercises, based on reports by the New York Times and Defense News, Hsieh said.

Defense News cited IngeniSPACE data showing that China had gathered 2,000 ships northeast of Taiwan and formed them into a 466km long L-shaped wall as part of drills to cut off Taiwan from foreign shipping lanes.

Two similar exercises were held last month — three days before China’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills — and this month, in which a mock blockade was maintained for 30 hours, the magazine said.

The Chinese People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia could become a nontraditional lethal threat during war that could inundate shipping lanes, preventing US and Japanese ships from intervening, and serving as decoys to deplete Taiwan’s limited anti-surface missiles, it said.

Such a force could be used to directly blockade commercial ports, and starve Taiwan of energy and food, it said.

It is relatively easy to monitor Chinese fishing ships that could be commandeered for militia use, but roll-on and roll-off freighters, which the Chinese could commandeer to ferry armored military vehicles, are harder to keep an eye on, Hsieh said.

Any freighters that slow to speeds below 5 knots (9kph) about 1km from the cable alert zones would trigger a signal from Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) to vacate the area, a warning that, if necessary, would be supported by the presence of CGA ships.

If the ships are suspected of having severed or destroyed undersea cables, they would be boarded and inspected, and prosecutors would be alerted, Hsieh said.

Media reports cited satellite imagery as showing that China is attempting to reclaim land in the South China Sea around Antelope Reef (Lingyangjiao, 羚羊礁) in the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which is claimed by Taiwan.

China intends to build a radar station on the reef, a helicopter pad and a military port to serve as a naval forward operating base, which would enable it to maintain constant surveillance of the southern side of the first island chain, news reports said.


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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer yesterday arrived in Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), hoping to restore long fraught relations.

It is the first visit to China by a British prime minister since 2018 and follows a string of Western leaders courting Beijing in the past few weeks, pivoting from a mercurial US.

Starmer, who is also expected to visit Shanghai tomorrow, would later make a brief stop in Japan to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, receives a bouquet of flowers at an airport in Beijing yesterday, as Chinese Minister of Finance Lan Foan, second left, looks on. Photo: Reuters

For Xi, the trip is an opportunity to show Beijing can be a reliable partner at a time when US President Donald Trump’s policies have rattled historic ties between Washington and its Western allies.

Starmer is battling record-low popularity polls and hopes the visit can boost the UK’s beleaguered economy.

The trip has been lauded by Downing Street as a chance to boost trade and investment ties while raising thorny issues such as national security and human rights.

Starmer is today to meet with Xi for lunch, followed by a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強).

The British leader said the visit to China was “going to be a really important trip for us,” vowing to make “some real progress.”

There are “opportunities” to deepen bilateral relations, Starmer told reporters traveling with him on the plane to China.

“It doesn’t make sense to stick our head in the ground and bury in the sand when it comes to China; it’s in our interests to engage and not compromise on national security,” he added.

China, for its part, “is willing to take this visit as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) told a news conference.

Starmer is the latest Western leader to be hosted by Beijing in the past few months, following visits by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Faced with Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Canada for signing a trade agreement with China, and the US president’s attempts to create a new international institution with his “Board of Peace,” Beijing has been affirming its support for the UN to visiting leaders.

title: Starmer arrives in Beijing to restore fraught relationship


content_text:
STRATEGY:  Amid the AI wave, universities can take advantage of Taiwan’s position in the industry by linking school names with related keywords, an educator said

Foreign nationals looking to study abroad are increasingly drawn to courses related to information and communications technology (ICT), the Association of International Cultural and Educational Exchange Taiwan said in a report released yesterday.

The preference for the field rose to 15.5 percent this year from 14.7 percent last year, reflecting the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on study choices, the association said.

Foreign students continued to show less willingness to study education, humanities and arts, and social sciences, while business and management — traditionally one of the most popular fields — also showed a downward trend, it said.

Results of an online survey conducted by the Association of International Cultural and Educational Exchange Taiwan last year. Photo: Screengrab from the Web site of the Association of International Cultural and Educational Exchange Taiwan

The report on international recruitment trends examines how the global wave of AI is shaping international students’ preferences.

The report was based on an online survey conducted throughout last year, with 3,700 non-Taiwanese respondents from 97 countries, who had an interest in Taiwan and planned to pursue an academic degree abroad, or who intended to study Mandarin in Taiwan, the association said.

It said 53.2 percent of respondents knew that “TSMC,” which supplies most of the world’s most advanced chips, is a Taiwanese company.

Many students said they were confused by a lack of detailed information, including scholarship amounts, the report said.

The association said 22.7 percent of respondents hoped to secure employment quickly after graduation, while 22 percent said they wanted to enter industries suitable for their skills.

Taiwan has historically struggled to compete with the US and Europe in global higher-education visibility, association chief executive office Allen Hung (洪志衛) said.

Past surveys found that more than 80 percent of international students did not understand Taiwan’s higher-education strengths, Hung said.

Amid the global AI wave, local universities can take advantage of Taiwan’s position in the AI and semiconductor industries by linking school and department names with related keywords, which could help attract prospective international students and strengthen brand recognition, he added.

title: Foreign students drawn to ICT courses: report


title: Long-term Thai immigrant shares her experiences

content_text:
Beka Chidapha, an immigrant from Thailand, shared her experiences at the National Immigration Agency yesterday, saying that she learned Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) by watching TV dramas, has no trouble interacting with elderly people and that “living in Taiwan is very happy.”

The agency’s Taipei service center held a course on family education and legal awareness, inviting Chidapha, who has lived in Taiwan for 20 years, to speak.

She shared her experiences adjusting to Taiwan’s food and culture, and overcoming language barriers, encouraging immigrants to open their hearts and put down roots in Taiwan.

Beka Chidapha speaks at an event at the National Immigration Agency’s Taipei City Service Center yesterday. Photo courtesy of the National Immigration Agency

The hardest part about moving to Taiwan was getting used to the food, as Thai food is spicy and heavily seasoned, while Taiwanese food is lighter, Chidapha said.

“When I first got to Taiwan, I always carried hot sauce in my bag,” she said.

However, she adjusted to Taiwanese tastes in time and now feels that Thai food is too strong when she goes back, she said.

Many older people mix Hoklo and Mandarin in daily conversation, which she initially struggled to understand, Chidapha said.

She learned gradually by asking questions and watching TV dramas, and now she can comfortably chat with older people in Hoklo, making daily life much easier, she said.

Chidapha has extensive experience as a cultural instructor and Thai language interpreter.

Her sense of gratitude motivated her to work with immigrant service centers, women’s associations and family centers, giving back to society through Thai cooking classes and cultural exchange activities, she said.

“Living in Taiwan is very happy,” Chidapha said.

Meanwhile, center director Su Hui-wen (蘇慧雯) said immigrants should remind friends and family abroad not to send any gifts containing pork products to Taiwan for the Lunar New Year.

This is to prevent African swine fever outbreaks in the nation, Su said, adding that illegally importing pork products is punishable by up to seven years in prison and fines of up to NT$3 million.


title: Control Yuan President Chen Chu resigns

people: 李鴻鈞 賴清德 陳菊

content_text:
The Presidential Office said yesterday that Chen Chu (陳菊) will be relieved of her posts as Control Yuan president, Control Yuan member and chairperson of Taiwan’s National Human Rights Commission after submitting her resignation.

The resignation will take effect on Feb. 1, the office said.

Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) has appointed Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) as acting president.

Former Control Yuan President Chen Chu speaks in an unidentified event in this undated photograph. Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times

Chen sought medical treatment for a cold late 2024 at Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, during which doctors discovered a tumor on her right kidney. After undergoing surgery, she suffered a cerebral embolism in the left side of her brain.

The hospital said Chen’s rehabilitation is stable and showing steady progress.

In September, the Control Yuan said Chen’s leave of absence was taken in accordance with relevant regulations. It added that she had waived her monthly salary since taking leave, which was returned to the national treasury at the beginning of each month.

Meanwhile, Kaohsiung City Councilor Chien Huan-tsung (簡煥宗) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and a protege of Chen, welcomed the development, telling reporters that Chen had long wished to step down and can now focus fully on her recovery.


people: 賴清德 鄭麗君

content_text:
POSSIBLE TARIFF HIKE: William Lai said that if the Legislative Yuan delayed approving the agreement, the US could raise its tariffs to 25% ‘or even higher’

President William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday urged the legislature to approve a trade agreement with the US that has yet to be finalized, warning that failure to do so could lead the US to hike tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 25 percent or higher.

In an interview with the FTV News channel, Lai said the tentative deal his administration reached with the US followed extensive negotiations and investment commitments by Taiwanese companies.

The terms of the agreement are “very good,” Lai said, adding that he hoped the legislature would approve the finalized version of the deal and not cause Taiwan to go back on its word.

President William Lai, left, speaks with Formosa TV anchorman Charles Hsu in an interview on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office

Lai was referring to a tentative agreement with the US this month under which the US would lower tariffs on Taiwanese goods from 20 percent to 15 percent.

In return, Taiwan committed Taiwanese companies to provide up to US$250 billion in direct investment in the US, while the government would provide up to US$250 billion in credit guarantees for companies investing in the US.

Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who led the negotiations, said the deal would also grant Taiwanese semiconductors and other products the most favorable treatment under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act, although the final tariff rates and quotas have yet to be finalized.

Once a deal is signed, it needs to be approved by the legislature. Its fate could also be complicated by an upcoming US Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s authority to impose tariffs.

Lai said that if the legislature delayed approving the agreement, the US could raise its tariffs on Taiwan to 25 percent “or even higher.”

Lai was likely hinting at the situation in South Korea, with US President Donald Trump on Monday threatening to raise tariffs from 15 percent to 25 percent for “not living up to” a trade deal reached last year.

Aside from the positive response from Taiwanese companies and the stock market to the deal with the US, the “anxiety” in South Korea shows that such an agreement is desirable, Lai said.

Lai also urged the legislature to approve the NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.91 billion) special defense budget his administration has proposed, while criticizing a competing plan put forward by an opposition party.

The legislature is primarily responsible for “oversight,” and lawmakers should respect the professional judgement of the Ministry of National Defense, which proposed the budget, he said.

The special defense budget is “NT$1.25 trillion over eight years, or NT$150 to NT$160 billion per year, which the government would use to build T-Dome — a smart air defense system — and advance the defense industry, all of which is interconnected and indispensable,” Lai said.

The Taiwan People’s Party, by contrast, has proposed cutting the budget to NT$400 billion, Lai said, warning that this would require giving up purchases that would leave T-Dome with a “hole” in it.

The passage of either special budget bill would be a significant expenditure for Taiwan, where overall defense spending in the government’s budget proposal, which remains stalled in the legislature, was about NT$950 billion.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not yet decided whether to review the government’s special defense budget or propose its own, a KMT lawmaker told the Central News Agency on condition of anonymity.

title: President urges legislature to ratify trade deal


content_text:
MARKET SHIFTS: China remained ASML’s biggest market at 36 percent of sales, but is expected to fall to 20 percent due to US-led restrictions on semiconductor sales

ASML Holding NV’s orders in the fourth quarter of last year far exceeded analysts’ expectations, as the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure boosted demand for its cutting-edge chipmaking machines.

Bookings in the quarter were a record 13.2 billion euros (US$15.8 billion), the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said in a statement yesterday.

That compares with an average analyst estimate of 6.85 billion euros, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

ASML Holding NV CEOChristophe Fouquet speaks at a news conference in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, yesterday. Photo: Bloomberg

ASML is the only producer of cutting-edge lithography machines that are needed to make advanced semiconductors and counts all the leading chip manufacturers as customers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Intel Corp. Its machinery is integral to producing the Nvidia Corp AI accelerators that are the backbone for training and running AI models in data centers.

The AI boom has continued into this year, defying concerns about overinvestment and helping push ASML’s market value to more than US$500 billion this month. TSMC said this month it anticipates capital spending of more than US$52 billion this year, much of which would be toward advanced manufacturing techniques.

Despite the strong orders, ASML also announced plans to cut about 1,700 jobs, mostly in the Netherlands with some in the US, as it seeks to streamline the organization. That represents about 4 percent of its workforce.

“We are doing great, and we are very happy with that, but even a great company needs to improve,” ASML chief executive officer Christophe Fouquet said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, adding that the company wanted to be more “agile.”

More than half of last quarter’s bookings were for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, totaling 7.4 billion euros, ASML said.

“In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand,” Fouquet said. “This is reflected in a marked step-up in their medium-term capacity plans and in our record order intake.”

Net profit last year came in at 9.6 billion euros, compared with 7.6 billion euros for 2024.

Total net sales were 32.7 billion euros last year. Revenue is seen at between 34 billion euros and 39 billion euros this year, higher than previous guidance. For the first quarter of this year, the firm predicted it would post between 8.2 billion euros and 8.9 billion euros in sales.

China remained ASML’s biggest market in the fourth quarter, accounting for 36 percent of net system sales.

The Chinese market is expected to fall to about 20 percent of revenue going forward, ASML chief financial officer Roger Dassen said.

ASML has never been able to sell its EUV lithography machines to China due to US-led restrictions aimed at curbing the Asian nation’s progress in the semiconductor sector. The machines it ships to China are eight generations behind most sophisticated model. Still, Chinese chipmakers have been buying up older equipment to make mature chips.

title: ASML Q4 orders exceed expectations


content_text:
Three government incentive programs launched in 2019 to encourage Taiwanese and foreign firms to invest in Taiwan have attracted NT$2.62 trillion (US$83.65 billion) in combined pledged investment from 1,712 companies and created more than 164,500 jobs as of Friday last week, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

The Executive Yuan in July last year approved an extension of the three programs — the Action Plan for Welcoming Overseas Taiwanese Businesses to Return to Invest in Taiwan, the Action Plan for Accelerated Investment by Domestic Corporations, and the Action Plan for Accelerated Investment by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises — through next year.

The extension is expected to attract an additional NT$1.2 trillion in investment and create about 80,000 more jobs, bringing the total accumulated investment under the programs to at least NT$3.6 trillion, Department of Investment Promotion Deputy Director Rio Lu (呂貞慧) told a news conference in Taipei.

Signage outside the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taipei is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Liao Chia-ning, Taipei Times

Among the three programs, the Action Plan for Welcoming Overseas Taiwanese Businesses to Return to Invest in Taiwan has attracted the largest amount, totaling more than NT$1.4 trillion, Lu said.

The program has drawn several major electronics manufacturers back to Taiwan, helping accelerate the return of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor supply chains, she said.

Regarding international investment promotion, the ministry secured 25 foreign investment cases in Taiwan last year, with the companies involved expected to invest about NT$160 billion over the next three to five years, she said.

The ministry aims to raise the number of investment cases and the total investment value further this year, Lu said.

The ministry has signed letters of intent with 11 of the 25 companies, including four from the US, four from Japan, two from Europe and one from South Korea, she said.

The investments cover areas ranging from advanced materials and power systems to semiconductors, AI, circular economy development and public services, she added.

About 80 percent of those cases involve companies expanding their operations and production capacity in Taiwan, while 12 percent are first-time investors in the country, and another 8 percent plan to establish research-and-development (R&D) centers here, Lu said.

Representative foreign investment cases include South Korean firm KoMiCo Ltd, which has established manufacturing operations and an R&D center in Taiwan to support local semiconductor makers’ demand for precision equipment components and refurbishment services, she said.

US-based power management company Eaton Corp has also expanded production of high-end uninterruptible power supply systems and power modules in Taiwan to meet rising electricity demand driven by the AI industry, she said.

In terms of investment by the information and communications technology sector, representative cases include chip packaging service provider Powertech Technology Inc’s (力成科技) two projects last year, the ministry said.

The investments, totaling NT$44.3 billion, were used to build fan-out panel-level packaging and advanced wafer-level packaging production lines, Powertech CEO Boris Hsieh (謝永達) said.

Powertech subsidiary TeraPower Technology Inc (晶兆成科技) also submitted two investment projects, committing an additional NT$24.5 billion to expand its highly automated wafer testing capacity, Hsieh said.

Meanwhile, reclaimed wafers supplier Phoenix Silicon International Corp (昇陽半導體) proposed four projects involving a total investment of NT$5.6 billion to add fully automated production lines and warehouse systems at its Taichung plants, Phoenix president Tony Tsai (蔡幸川) said.

The ministry will continue to help shape industry advantages this year through the three programs to build a more competitive investment environment, Lu said.

title: Incentives attract NT$2.62 trillion


title: EDITORIAL: Taiwan’s window of opportunity

content_text:
Taiwan’s export-oriented economy is booming amid strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the National Development Council (NDC) said on Tuesday.

The composite index of economic indicators flashed “red” last month for the first time in a year, while the index of leading indicators — which gauges economic conditions over the next six months — also rose, reflecting growing optimism, the NDC said.

These gains came despite uncertainties stemming from US tariff policies unveiled in April last year and were driven by a stronger-than-expected AI boom, NDC Department of Economic Development Director Chen Mei-chu (陳美菊) said.

To date, much of Taiwan’s AI-related economic growth has taken the form of semiconductor exports, with Taiwanese chips powering servers that deliver AI services worldwide. However, Taiwan is increasingly well positioned to become a leader not only in chips, but also in the provision of complete AI systems, encompassing supercomputers, data centers, network infrastructure, and software stacks and frameworks.

That shift is already under way. Google opened its largest AI infrastructure hardware engineering center outside the US in Taipei in November last year, and the government last month inaugurated a new cloud computing center in Tainan intended to serve as a hub for innovation in high-performance computing, telecommunications, cloud services and digital content.

The facility forms part of broader government efforts, in collaboration with Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Asustek, to develop AI supercomputers in Tainan and Hsinchu, targeting a combined computing capacity of 1.2 exaflops.

The Ministry of Digital Affairs on Tuesday said that its Sovereign AI Training Corpus has surpassed 1.1 billion tokens in just more than a month after its launch. The platform, introduced on Dec. 24 last year, aims to collect high-quality data in traditional Mandarin to train sovereign AI models that better reflect Taiwan’s linguistic patterns and cultural context.

If successful, the initiative could provide a template for the development of sovereign AI models in other languages. One potential application is Paraguay, where Taiwan has reportedly held discussions on building a large data center to leverage the country’s abundant renewable energy. In line with the objectives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diplomatic Allies Prosperity Project, such a facility could position Paraguay as a regional AI hub, with a Spanish-language sovereign AI model built on Taiwanese technologies.

This points to a broader strategic opportunity. Taiwan has the capacity to emerge as a global AI leader, and — building on its dominance in semiconductors — to offer a complete AI ecosystem supported by a “non-red” supply chain. The development of such a supply chain, including potential overseas investments, would align closely with US strategic interests by limiting China’s role as an AI investor in key regions. A high-capacity computing center in Latin America could also provide the US with an additional offshore option for cloud services.

Pursuing this path would allow Taiwan to diversify its economy while reinforcing the so-called “silicon shield” underpinned by its semiconductor industry. AI services are not as indispensable to the global economy as semiconductors, but that is likely to change. AI increasingly drives growth, efficiency and new markets, and is rapidly being integrated into the operations of governments and businesses.

AI is reshaping productivity and economic models, enabling advances in autonomous vehicles, drug discovery, financial trading, supply-chain optimization, search and recommendation systems, and large-scale content generation. Its relevance spans industries from medicine to entertainment.

Taiwan has laid much of the groundwork for the AI revolution by producing ever more advanced chips that allow AI applications to run at scale. AI cannot function without semiconductors, but semiconductors alone do not generate the productivity, automation and innovation that AI enables. The two are complementary.

As AI multiplies the value and efficiency of nearly all technologies and industries, demand for advanced chips would only intensify. A strategic shift toward AI hardware and software systems therefore does not diminish the importance of Taiwan’s semiconductor sector — it reinforces it.

Developing AI systems would not only strengthen Taiwan’s economic resilience at a time of growing pressure on globalization, but also deepen its indispensability within global supply chains. AI has the potential to become a new engine of employment, support the continued provision of social services, and evolve into Taiwan’s next “silicon shield” — raising the economic and strategic costs of any attempt by China to isolate or invade the country.


title: Taipei 101 climbing & the ROC flag

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On Sunday, elite free solo climber Alex Honnold — famous worldwide for scaling sheer rock faces without ropes — climbed Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest building and still the most recognizable symbol of Taiwan’s modern identity. Widespread media coverage not only promoted Taiwan, but also saw the Republic of China (ROC) flag fluttering beside the building, breaking through China’s political constraints on Taiwan.

That visual impact did not happen by accident. Credit belongs to Taipei 101 chairwoman Janet Chia (賈永婕), who reportedly took the extra step of replacing surrounding flags with the ROC flag ahead of the climb.

Just two days before Honnold’s climb, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — Taiwan’s main opposition party — was busy blocking legislation critical to Taiwan’s national defense. For the eighth time, it obstructed a special defense budget and arms procurement from the US, while simultaneously pushing to revive the Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum, commonly known as the KMT-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) forum, and promoting a potential meeting between KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

That was not enough for Beijing. Chinese officials reportedly complained that the KMT’s efforts to delay arms purchases amounted only to “technical obstruction,” and demanded more. Specifically, they insisted that the KMT stop evading the question of “post-unification institutional arrangements” — and, crucially, stop allowing Taiwanese to believe that the ROC could continue to exist in case of unification. In Beijing’s view, “unification” means the complete absorption of Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with the ROC erased.

During elections, the KMT never fails to proclaim that it is “defending the ROC,” waving the ROC flag and warning voters that a victory by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would spell the end of the ROC. Yet, it is not the DPP that appears to be cooperating — wittingly or not — with Beijing’s insistence on eliminating the ROC. Against the backdrop of Chia’s efforts to let the world see Taiwan and its flag, the KMT’s posture looks not just contradictory, but painfully absurd.

From the CCP’s perspective, the logic is brutally simple: Any refusal to submit to rule under the PRC flag is “Taiwan independence.” It makes no difference whether one invokes the ROC, the Constitution or historical continuity. The CCP has reached the point of pressing the KMT to accept the destruction of the ROC and embrace “unification” under the PRC. Given Beijing’s track record, it is only a matter of time before figures such as Chia — who dared to let the ROC flag be seen — are labeled “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.”

When that happens, no one should expect the KMT to speak up. This is a party that has already bent so far toward Beijing that it no longer dares to object. It has become less an opposition party than a scout for China’s “united front” tactics aimed at Taiwan.

John Yu is a civil servant in Taipei.

Translated by Lin Lee-kai

people: 鄭麗文 習近平


title: Sinner advances by beating US’ Shelton

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LAST HOPE:  Chen Kuan-shou was the last Taiwanese standing at the Australian Open after Hsieh Su-wei and Wu Fang-hsien lost their respective doubles matches

Reigning champion Jannik Sinner faces 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic in a blockbuster Australian Open men’s singles semi-final after taming Ben Shelton in straight sets yesterday, while the two Taiwanese in the women’s doubles both exited, leaving Chen Kuan-shou in the junior boys singles as the nation’s last representative in Melbourne.

Sinner, the second-seeded Italian, swatted aside the eighth-seeded American 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. He has dropped only one set in moving ominously into the last four.

Earlier, Djokovic was the first to admit he was lucky to be back in the Australian Open semi-finals instead of Lorenzo Musetti.

Italy’s Jannik Sinner serves to Ben Shelton of the US during their men’s singles quarter-final at the Australian Open in Melbourne yesterday. Photo: AFP

Despite being two sets down and slowed by a blister on his foot, the 24-time major winner won their quarter-final when fifth-seeded Musetti retired with an injury.

Musetti took the first two sets 6-4, 6-3, but needed a medical timeout for treatment on his upper right leg after being broken in the third game of the third.

Djokovic, who was leading the set 3-1 when his opponent withdrew, is to continue his bid for an 11th Australian title and a record 25th major, but said that he was lucky this time.

“It happened to me a few times, but being in the quarters of a Grand Slam, two sets to love up and being in full control — I mean, so unfortunate,” for Musetti, Djokovic said in an on-court TV interview. “He should have been a winner today.”

In the women’s singles, Jessica Pegula said she would have to “crack the code” of Elena Rybakina in the semi-finals after dismantling error-strewn Amanda Anisimova in an all-American showdown.

The sixth seed won 6-2, 7-6 (7/1) to end fourth-seeded Anisimova’s hopes of a third Grand Slam final in a row.

Pegula’s serve was proving a major weapon and she nailed the first set in 30 minutes as she fired down her sixth ace.

The 24-year-old Anisimova cut an increasingly frustrated figure as her unforced error count mounted and she had her head in her hands as the quarter-final threatened to get away from her.

She broke Pegula’s serve in the second set, but was broken back straight away with her fourth double fault of the contest.

Three more double faults quickly followed and Pegula raced away in the tiebreaker as Anisimova’s temper boiled over.

Anisimova said that she would “lose her mind” for a couple of days after the defeat.

“I would say as a tennis player, you can be very irrational, and obviously I’m very grateful for the life that I have, the career I have, but you kind of lose your mind after matches like this,” she said. “I think that after a day like today, I’m going to completely lose all sense of rationality for, like, 48 hours.”

Next up for Pegula is Kazakh fifth seed Rybakina, who defeated second-seeded Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1 in their quarter-final.

The other semi-final at Melbourne Park is to be between world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and 12th-seeded Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.

In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and Hsieh Su-wei exited in their respective quarter-finals.

Wu and partner Eri Hozumi of Japan were beaten 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 by Elise Mertens of Belgium and Zhang Shuai of China, while Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani defeated Hsieh and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, 6-1, 7-6 (7/5).

The departure of Hsieh and Wu left Chen as the only Taiwanese left at Melbourne Park.

The 17-year-old on Sunday beat Brazil’s Leonardo Storck Franca in the first round of the junior boys’ singles, winning 6-4, 6-3 in 1 hour, 34 minutes.

In the second round on Tuesday he eliminated Australian Jake Dembo 6-2, 6-3 to set up a match today against Nikita Bilozertsev of Ukraine, with the winner earning a spot in the quarter-finals.

In the junior boys’ doubles alongside partner Flynn Thomas of Switzerland, he lost in round one on Sunday 6-2, 7-6 (9/7) to Juan Miguel Bolivar Idarraga of Colombia and Vihaan Reddy of the US.

The left-handed Chen has an ITF Juniors Singles ranking of 13.

The Tainan native on Facebook on Thursday last week thanked the ITF team for “giving me the opportunity to participate in the 2026 GSPDP [Grand Slam Player Development Programme] ITF U18 team to play in Australia.”

The first stop on the GSPDP was the J300 Traralgon in Victoria state, where Chen was runner-up in the singles and doubles. He lost 6-1, 6-2 against Luis Guto Miguel of Brazil in the singles after only previously having dropped a single set through the semi-finals.

In the doubles, Chen and Thomas were beaten 6-0, 6-4 by Miguel and Slovenia’s Ziga Sesko.

“This has been an incredible week,” Chen said ahead of his run at the Australian Open.

The ITF-operated GSPDP and the ITF U18 touring team aim to “provide players from underrepresented nations and regions with greater access to top competition,” as well as “accelerating development for players aged 15 to 18 to transition to the professional circuit,” the ITF Web site says.

The program provides funding for its players, with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-chen receiving a US$25,000 grant this year.

No. 37 Lin also played at the Australian Open, beating Carrie-Anne Hoo of the US 6-2, 7-6 (12/10) in the first round of the junior girls’ singles on Saturday, but losing 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 to Zhang Ruien of China in the second round on Monday.

In the junior girls’ doubles, Maia Ilinca Burcescu of Romania and Kali Supova of Slovakia beat Lin and Hoo 6-4, 7-5 in the first round on Monday.

Additional reporting by staff writer


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‘MINNESOTA STRONG’: US Representative Ilhan Omar vowed to remain resilient after a man sprayed an unknown liquid at her during a town hall

US immigration agents might have breached “protocol” in Minneapolis before shooting dead a nurse during protests, a senior White House aide said on Tuesday, as US President Donald Trump suggested he would “de-escalate a little bit” in the city.

The comments came the same day a man sprayed US Representative Ilhan Omar with a syringe of unknown liquid at a Minneapolis town hall meeting, where she called for curbing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said the administration is evaluating whether the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who gunned down 37-year-old Alex Pretti on Saturday failed to follow “clear guidance” to “create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors.”

A man is tackled after spraying an unknown substance at US Representative Ilhan Omar, left, during a town hall she was hosting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said in a statement, although the White House later said Miller was referring to “general guidance” to immigration agents in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, Trump told Fox News that the administration was “going to de-escalate a little bit” its operations in Minneapolis, adding that the plan was not a “pullback.”

He said that CBP commander Gregory Bovino, who is now expected to leave the city, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence might not have helped the situation.

Trump also told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label previously used by Miller to describe Pretti, adding that he wants “a very honorable and honest investigation.”

Still, tensions remained high in Minneapolis after Omar, a Democrat, was attacked by a man at a constituent town hall on Tuesday night.

Omar had just spoken about the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and demanded that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “resign or face impeachment,” when the man sprang from the front row, made a remark and sprayed the lawmaker with liquid from a syringe as security leapt to grab him.

Omar raised a fist and stepped toward the attacker before returning to the podium to say: “Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand: We are Minnesota strong, and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw on us.”

Omar is a frequent target of Trump, who continues to defend Noem, despite her oversight of federal agents who shot and killed two US citizens this month.

Minneapolis police immediately arrested the man, identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, and booked him at the county jail for third-degree assault, spokesperson Trevor Folke said. Forensic scientists responded to the scene.

Omar continued the town hall for about 25 more minutes after the man was ushered out by security, saying she would not be intimidated.

There was a strong, vinegar-like smell after the man pushed on the syringe, a witness said.

Photos of the device, which fell to the ground when he was tackled, showed what appeared to be a light-brown liquid inside. There was no immediate word from officials on what it was.

Omar later wrote on X: “I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.”

Additional reporting by AP

title: Trump calls for de-escalation


title: Doomsday Clock set closer than ever to midnight

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TICKTOCK: Longstanding nuclear frameworks are under duress or collapsing, while the threat of new testing has returned with fears of nuclear proliferation

Atomic scientists on Tuesday set their “Doomsday Clock” closer than ever to midnight, citing aggressive behavior by nuclear powers Russia, China and the US, fraying nuclear arms control, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Beijing’s actions around Taiwan and artificial intelligence (AI) worries among factors driving risks for global disaster.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock to 85 seconds before midnight, the theoretical point of annihilation. That is four seconds closer than it was set last year.

The Chicago-based nonprofit created the clock in 1947 during the Cold War to warn the public about how close humankind was to destroying the world.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists‘ Doomsday Clock, set at 85 seconds to midnight, is displayed at a news conference on Friday. Photo: AP

The scientists voiced concern about threats of unregulated integration of AI into military systems and its potential misuse in aiding the creation of biological threats, as well as its role in spreading disinformation. They also noted continuing climate change challenges.

“Of course, the Doomsday Clock is about global risks, and what we have seen is a global failure in leadership,” nuclear policy expert and Bulletin president and CEO Alexandra Bell said. “No matter the government, a shift towards neo-imperialism and an Orwellian approach to governance will only serve to push the clock toward midnight.”

It was the third time in the past four years that the scientists moved the clock closer to midnight.

“In terms of nuclear risks, nothing in 2025 trended in the right direction,” Bell said. “Longstanding diplomatic frameworks are under duress or collapsing, the threat of explosive nuclear testing has returned, proliferation concerns are growing, and there were three military operations taking place under the shadow of nuclear weapons and the associated escalatory threat. The risk of nuclear use is unsustainably and unacceptably high.”

Bell pointed to Russia’s continued war in Ukraine, the US and Israeli bombing of Iran, and border clashes between India and Pakistan. She also cited continuing tensions in Asia, including on the Korean Peninsula and China’s threats toward Taiwan, as well as rising tensions in the western hemisphere since US President Donald Trump returned to office.

Maria Ressa, a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for her journalistic efforts exposing abuses of power in the Philippines including how social media platforms were used to spread disinformation, participated in the announcement.

She lamented the rise of technology that circulates lies more quickly than facts.

“We are living through an information Armageddon that’s brought about by the technology that rules our lives, from social media to generative AI. None of that tech is anchored in facts. Your chatbot is nothing but a probabilistic machine,” Ressa told an online news conference.


content_text:
The chip industry does not factor into Beijing’s calculations to take Taiwan, much less provide any sort of shield

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary-General Xi Jinping (習近平) has effectively decapitated the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership, with his purges finally taking down Zhang Youxia (張又俠), the last PLA general with widespread power and respect.

Speculation is rife on why this is happening, who will rise to form the new PLA leadership and what this all means for Taiwan. Some of this speculation is thoughtful and well-informed, some is based on wishful thinking and feeble, well-worn tropes.

Meanwhile, the messaging from Washington is whiplash-inducing. Regardless of what one thinks of the former administration of president Joe Biden, it was clear from the beginning that they had a plan of action regarding Taiwan that was consistent and coordinated across the government as a whole, with top officials even speaking off the same script. Describing the relationship with Taiwan as “rock solid” was repeated regularly by top officials.

Though uncoordinated, the first Trump administration was packed with pro-Taiwan, or at least anti-China, figures. This provided some semblance of coherence, but not only is the second Trump administration uncoordinated in its approach to Taiwan, even within departments, the message can change from day to day, and we never know what they are going to say and do next. Strategic ambiguity has been replaced with strategic incoherence.

Amid all this, partisan political warfare domestically is making it hard for Taiwan to respond strategically or coherently.

Flowing through all three issues is frequent discussion of Taiwan’s so-called “silicon shield.” This is not just misguided, it is dangerous because it is a mirage conjured up with dollops of wishful thinking, gross oversimplifications and misunderstandings.

At the core of the theory is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), whose fabs produce over 90 percent of the most cutting-edge chips, while Taiwanese chipmakers as a whole are credited with producing half of the entire market.

These chips are at the core of our entire technological civilization. They are essential components not just in our cell phones, but in every computer, satellite and data center that keep communications, infrastructure and even fighter jets functioning. They are often referred to as the “new oil,” or likened to the spice in the Dune science fiction series.

There are two main variants to the “silicon shield” myth. One is that due to the crucial role chips play in the world economy, the world would ride to the rescue to defend Taiwan, led by the US.

The second is that China’s export-led economy would seize up and grind to a halt without Taiwan’s chips, and would not dare to invade due to the enormous economic costs that it would impose domestically.

Both are wrong.

THE PROBLEM IS BIGGER

The first problem is that while impressive, TSMC is simply one node on a supply chain that includes hundreds of individual nodes, all critical in their own way, even if less high profile. If suppliers of suppliers are included, this chain extends into the thousands of companies and hundreds of weak points.

Without those suppliers, TSMC cannot function, and many suppliers are equally unique and essential to the entire chain. These range from the highest-tech inputs from Holland, Germany, the US and Japan, all the way to the raw materials, chemicals and gases needed to produce the final product — and those supply chains extend across the planet.

It gets worse: focusing on Taiwan and TSMC misses the bigger picture. An often cited statistic from Bloomberg is that half of the world’s trade passes through the Taiwan Strait, but even that figure obscures the true scale of the problem.

If the CCP launched an attack on Taiwan, it would inevitably draw in Japan and possibly South Korea. China would almost certainly be under blockade, while it would blockade Taiwan and target Japanese shipping. South Korea is boxed in geographically, so even in the best-case scenario, what little shipping could make it in and out of Japan and South Korea would be hit with ruinously high shipping insurance.

China’s exports would shrivel to what minuscule quantities they can get out via Russia and central Asia to reach small markets — largely disappearing from the world economy. Japan and South Korea would struggle, and Taiwan would be cut off entirely.

The lack of chips would be just a tiny fraction of the economic impact; taking everything these economies produce off the world market would cause trillions in devastating economic ripple effects. It is not just Taiwan, but also Japan, South Korea and especially China that play critical roles in the supply chains of virtually all modern manufacturing.

In that environment, chips are the least of the world’s problems. Even if the materials are available for factories to produce low-tech products outside of this region, it is only a matter of time before the technologies those factories rely on to manufacture those products begin to break down, lacking key components reliant on East Asia.

Even where key production remains viable outside of the region, prices will skyrocket. So will prices of secondhand goods.

And what if North Korea, Russia or even Southeast Asia gets drawn into this war?

PARASITIC BEAST

Of course, aside from Taiwan, the most devastated economy would be China’s. Alone, it accounts for over a quarter of global manufacturing output. Cut off from world markets, the economic impact would be devastating.

Chips would be low on the list of China’s problems. Crucial inputs like food and fuel travel through chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca, and would be almost entirely cut off. Additionally, they would also be largely cut off from global financial markets, leaving them only a trickle of outlets through countries like Russia.

No rational leader would willingly choose to destroy their own country’s economy, right?

The CCP is rational, but not in terms most people are used to. It is fundamentally a parasitic, extractive beast.

It feeds and sustains itself on power. The CCP’s priority is to maintain power, and ideally expand it.

They are well aware that their base of power and control is in the resources it commands domestically. In this system, people are just resources to exploit.

If Xi calculates that the benefits of extending the CCP’s power and control domestically by an invasion of Taiwan outweigh the risks, he will order the PLA to attack.

There is no mercy in the CCP’s history. Unleashing widespread starvation, destruction, terror and violence are features, not bugs, in feeding their power and control.

In this calculus, the fear in Zhongnanhai is not widespread death in an orgy of ideological and ethnonationalistic fury and destruction unleashed by war, but of internal revolt.

Aware of these weaknesses, Beijing has been stockpiling essential goods and expanding its financial alternatives for some time. These could keep the lights on and people fed for some time, but they would not do much beyond that.

Joblessness would be massive, leaving many in a situation where even if food is available, they may not be able to afford it. The government would likely release just enough food to avoid widespread unrest, but not much more.

The CCP has been practicing mass civilian control since it came to power. In recent years, mass repression of minorities like the Uighurs and Tibetans, and draconian lockdowns during COVID, served as dry runs for a mass crackdown.

While they will initially count on propaganda-fed ethnonationalism to rally people to support a war, how confident is the CCP in its ability to contain the public if the people turn against it as the costs rise, livelihoods are destroyed and the body bags stack up?

How loyal would the PLA remain if it were repeatedly defeated in battle? How loyal would the CCP’s rank-and-file be?

These are just some of the calculations that will weigh on Xi’s mind.

Chips do not factor into these calculations; much less provide any sort of shield.

Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.

title: Donovan’s Deep Dives: Kill the myth of the ‘silicon shield’


title: Get on board with modern banking Taiwan

content_text:
Few experiences sour expats more powerfully than banks that treat them as second-class citizens, a decades-long problem that the nation needs to address as it ages and competes for foreign labor

Dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) famous return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been overshadowed by the astonishing news of the latest arrests of senior military figures for “corruption,” but it is an interesting piece of news in its own right, though more for what Ai does not understand than for what he does.

Ai simply lacks the reflective understanding that the loneliness and isolation he imagines are “European” are simply the joys of life as an expat. That goes both ways: “I love Taiwan!” say many still wet-behind-the-ears expats here, not realizing what they love is being an expat.

For example, Ai reported that few Germans had ever invited him into his home, very much a standard experience for expatriates. In 30 years here, I have only been in local homes when on some business there, or if they were relatives. Ai said he reactivated his suspended Chinese bank account in minutes (no kidding, he’s a local in the PRC). Of Europe, he complained: “In Germany, my bank accounts were closed twice. And not just mine, but my girlfriend’s as well. In Switzerland, I was refused an account at the country’s largest bank, and another bank later closed my account there as well. There were other similar incidents, which I won’t go into detail about here. These processes are extraordinarily complicated and often irrational.”

Welcome to expat life, Mr. Ai, where irrational banks are a fact in every country (wait til someone tells him what foreigners can go through in the PRC). As this goes to publication I am closing my useless account at the Taiwan Post Office since it will not recognize any variations on my name, a major issue for expat banking here. Recently a large check from a US bank was rejected because it used my initial instead of my full middle name, though ID numbers were the same. Similarly, I set up the National Heath Insurance (NHI) to automatically take money from my post office account while I was abroad. These were rejected because the NHI used my Chinese name, which has been associated with that account for decades (it’s right there on the chop I have had registered with them since I opened the account, for one thing) and all the ID numbers were identical. My NHI payments then fell into arrears. Of course no one notified me.

These experiences are by no means unusual. Nearly all long-term expats here report them. Banking problems are a leading complaint of Gold Card holders, the royalty of Taiwan’s visa caste system.

“Anything to do with banking is complicated, onerous and time consuming,” a respondent wrote in a survey of Gold card holders in 2023. “If there was one thing I could change about Taiwan it would be for it to get on board with modern banking systems.”

Amen, but the banks simply forward a hollow apology and move on. No one ever makes them change fundamentally. Instead, the banking system has slathered a veneer of English and other languages across its rigid, impaired services, like a thick sauce over rotten meat.

Ai’s anger at the stupidity of European banks is an anger generated by the attempt to shove the square of foreignness into the circle of local life: one can never fit. Because life without money is impossible, the local bank is the place where the raw experience of being an expat becomes real, where expats are forced to confront their otherness. Hence the long-running jokes among foreigners about the banking system, which are really attempts to cope with the way rejection at the bank is a form of rejection by local society, the way the bank operates like a formal extension of the little kid on the street yelling “foreigner!”

When asked about their archaic banking systems, bank officials will explain that these restrictions exist to combat money laundering. For example, when my wife, from the Philippines, left Taiwan in August last year one bank requested she close her account, saying that Filipinos often sell their accounts to money launderers. Consider the implications of that request: apparently once the account is in the hands of criminals, they have no trouble operating it. The anti-money laundering measures appear to inconvenience only law-abiding people. Despite these measures, in 2024 the UN office on Drugs and Crime identified Taiwan as a major money laundering hub.

The necessity for change is urgent. Earlier this month, columnist Courtney Donovan Smith argued that this year services are going to begin their slow erosion. The nation is attempting to ameliorate its worsening labor shortages, creations of its suicidal immigration and birth policies, by importing foreign workers. Smith argued that soon Taiwan will reach the psychologically potent number of a million foreign workers, but many would contend that the total number of foreigners in Taiwan already exceeds that magic figure.

All these people are going to need banking services and they are going to need them under full names, names with initials, and Chinese names and local and foreign ID numbers, all seamlessly linked (ironically, that would be a useful anti-money laundering measure) so that it is irrelevant what the order of names on my account is. That would help reduce the insanity one encounters trying to deposit foreign checks. Depositing a piddling US$413 check I received for selling a story to Analog took four hours of debate with officials at a bank where I had banked for two decades, and later they rejected a check from my parents completely. Every foreigner has stories like this.

My NHI card forces me to use only my Chinese name, meaning that the Post Office bank won’t recognize my account, even though both are government agencies. Since the tax office uses my NHI card to open my tax data, the government obviously knows I have multiple legal names and what ID numbers are associated with those names. Banks should be compelled to accept that. The seamlessness of the tax service, ironically often the friendliest and most problem-free interaction foreigners have with officialdom, is an illusion: for the tax refund, they need a copy of the account book with the legal name at that particular bank, which the clerk must then input manually. Foreigners often move around, but the requirement that certain functions can only be performed at the “home bank” for the account remains.

At present 20 percent of the population, or roughly 4.5 million people, are aged. Even if only a fourth to sixth of that population requires a foreign caregiver, an additional 700,000 or more caregivers could be imported, especially as Taiwan is moving towards relaxing the requirements for employing a foreign caregiver. That does not take into account the need for everything from bus drivers to convenience store clerks just to run Taiwan’s increasingly aged society. These new foreigners need banks that can treat them with the dignity and competence they deserve. As Ai Weiwei’s story shows, few experiences sour expats on their new homes more powerfully than banks that treat them as second-class citizens.

Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.


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Book review: A dark pipeline from National Taiwan University to Silicon ValleyOnce a coder at Google, author Tsao Cheng-hao has become a literary sensation for his neo-existentialist novel on life in big tech’s ruthless meritocracy

As Kevin Wang (王可), the translator to Terao Tetsuya’s (寺尾哲也) Spent Bullets (子彈是餘生) points out in his afterword to the novel’s English version, during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a popular saying in Taiwan: “Come come, come to National Taiwan University; leave, leave, leave for the USA.”

Tetsuya is the nom de plume for Taiwan’s 37-year-old literary wunderkind Tsao Cheng-hao (曹盛濠), who during his 20s followed this “ladder to heaven” to become a coder for Google in Silicon Valley. After quitting the big tech rat race in 2021, he wrote this novel about a group of coders whose lives become so abjectly meaningless that some among them long for nothing less than suicide.

The book, Tsao’s 2022 debut, has already proven something of a sensation for young Taiwanese, winning two top prizes at the 2023 Taiwanese Literature Awards and a film deal with Taiwan-based Each Other Films (彼此影業). Readers have resonated with his characters, college students and young tech workers who obsessively strive for achievements and a sense of belonging in groups that offer them no real happiness.

The novel, which in a sort of Faulknerian way is told from the point of view of multiple narrators, is also ingenious in its puzzle-like construction. Each chapter arrives like a new piece of a shattered mirror, reflecting a larger but always slightly disjointed story. Readers are forced to fill in the narrative gaps and also ask themselves big questions, like what does this all mean?

Tsao’s storytelling, which uses coldly dispassionate narrators who reveal almost nothing of their own thoughts or feelings, bears similarities to contemporaries like Taiwanese writers like Sabrina Huang (黃麗群) and Chang Yi-hsun (張亦絢) and Chinese novelist Shuang Xuetao (雙雪濤), according to Wang.

I also found echoes of French existentialist Albert Camus and his modern day acolytes, like Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk and France’s current cultural ambassador of nihilism Michel Houellebecq. Like them, Tsao gives us characters who perceive their lives as so absurd and meaningless that they no longer care about their own potential self-extinction.

The novel is very roughly framed around two Taiwanese friends, both NTU grads now working in Silicon Valley, who undertake some minimally explained, personal pilgrimage to Las Vegas. On the desert highway, their conversatoin pries open a dark closet of the inexplicable suicide of the most brilliant coder in their college class, Jie-heng. Through denials and partial admissions, they begin to unearth their own uncomfortable complicities in his deeply troubling story.

As a group, these coders have all encountered a profound sense of alienation in America.

“America was geographically vast,” says one, “but in our first-generation immigrant psyche, it might as well be as narrow as a cabin in a snowstorm.”

Living in the bubbles of big tech campuses, theirs is a disrupted existence of psych meds, performance evaluations and eating disorders. Reality only intrudes through un-processable events like campus shootings. It’s hardly the promised land of their parents’ dreams.

America’s philosophical bleakness is posed in contrast to Taiwan, which is still a place of obligations, where politics potentially matter, and where actions might meaningfully affect the future. But even ideas of home have been poisoned.

Before joining a Taiwanese-American protest march in San Francisco — one held in solidarity with Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower Movement — a Taiwanese graduate student in a US east coast university declares somewhat unsurely, “we have a vested interest in what happens back home. Aren’t we obligated to help?”

His friends, now working for tech companies that offer them huge benefit packages, smoke weed and engage in unsatisfying sex before joining him at the march. Though drawn by a vague sense of obligation, they view the protests as essentially pointless. Their participation amounts to little more than ironic commentary on how much their company life insurance plans will pay out should they die by police violence.

Episodes from their Taiwanese school years point to the roots of their nihilism. All are products of Taiwan’s suffocating educational culture, their success determined by Squid Game-like series of examinations, rankings and school competitions.

For some, the only release from this pressure cooker they can imagine is suicide: “Like rockets thrusting upward before achieving orbit, all we could do on our promised trajectory was sacrifice each other and ourselves, striving to ascend faster and faster until we broke into the cosmos, where nothing would impede our progress, where we would be just like Jie-heng.”

Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, adds a further degree of alienation — and it should be noted that there are very graphic descriptions of gay sex that some readers may not like. For Jie-heng and his tribe, this begins in junior high school, when one boy is locked inside a small closet, while another urinates on him through a vent. It’s a precursor to an adult sex life of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism (BDSM), but with a few new twists, like masochistic sugar daddies known as “paypigs.”

Other bizarre subcultural forays by this tribe lead them into underground Taipei gambling dens for the boardgame Go and a group-help meeting in San Francisco on overcoming same-sex lust.

When the duo on the road trip to Las Vegas finally arrive, there is no hope or excitement. Just the opposite, they say they want to lose big.

But even in this, they fail: “our luck was unstinting, slapping us in the face with win after win.”

This odd reversal is a core theme of the book. The coders’ feelings of individual worthlessness have turned their successful, perfectly secure lives into a perfect absurdity. As a result, they feel impelled to play careless and risky games. Only those too chicken for suicide continue to live on by going through the standard motions.

It’s an extremely dark vision, one in which love and redemption are wholly absent. It achieves its brutal force by reflecting uncomfortable truths. But at certain times it also rings false.

It slightly bothers me that Tsao has chosen a pen name that is a combination of his favorite characters from Japanese manga. It’s a sophomoric affectation and, while fairly common in Taiwan, it inclines me to take him seriously when he says that his writing is mainly an aesthetic exercise and does not intend any sort of social commentary.

While I found this book, as one online reader described it, “Brutal. Hard to read. Impossible to put down,” in just a few instances, Spent Bullets read too much like a hardboiled comic, a nerdy otaku vision of life by someone who hasn’t lived much of it. In those moments, I felt that Tsao opted for a kind of cinematic coolness over inner truth. It made me question how seriously one should take a novel that is in so many ways taut, masterful and revolutionary.


content_text:
Not ready for robots in homes? The maker of a friendly new humanoid thinks it might change your mind

As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like “eyebrows” and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Sprout’s charm is the point. A 5-year-old child could comfortably talk at eye level with this humanoid, which stands 1 meter tall and wears a soft, padded exterior of sage-green foam.

Forged by stealth startup Fauna Robotics over two years of secret research and development, Sprout’s public debut on Tuesday aims to jump-start a whole new industry of building “approachable” robots for homes, schools and social spaces.

The robot is in many ways the first of its kind, at least in the US, even as rapid advances in artificial intelligence and robot engineering have finally made it possible to start building such machines. If its emotive expressions and blinking lights seem vaguely familiar, it might be from generations of Star Wars droids and other endearingly clunky robotic sidekicks dreamed up in animation studios and children’s literature.

“Most people in this industry take inspiration from the science fiction that we grew up with,” said Fauna Robotics co-founder and CEO Rob Cochran. “I think some do so from Westworld and Terminator. We do from WALL-E and Baymax and Rosie Jetson.”

BUSINESS CASE FOR ROBOTS

The usual hypothesis for the commercialization of humanoid robots is that they will get their first jobs in warehouses or factories long before they are ready for homes. That’s the path proposed for two of today’s best-known prototypes: Tesla’s Optimus, which CEO Elon Musk sees as the carmaker’s future, and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, which parent company Hyundai plans to deploy in car manufacturing by 2028.

Fauna looks to skip that step for an entirely different clientele: other robot tinkerers. Much as early personal computers and, later, smartphones sparked a culture of developers designing new games and applications, Sprout is a software developer platform more than just a robot. It’s also a mechanically complex one that will cost buyers US$50,000.

That’s a price some university research labs and technology entrepreneurs are already spending on China’s Unitree, which sells a lightweight humanoid often seen at robotics conferences and competitions. Others have avoided Chinese hardware due to tariffs and broader security concerns.

Cochran believes Fauna is “the first American company to be actively shipping robots as a developer platform” and has been hand-delivering the first models. Early customers include Disney and Boston Dynamics.

“You take it out of the box and you can start walking it around immediately,” said Marc Theermann, chief strategy officer at Boston Dynamics, in a recent interview. “Seeing their robot for the first time really lets you see the future a little bit. And if you squint, you can see how a robot like that would be welcomed into people’s homes.”

TESTING GROUNDS

Sprout can’t lift heavy objects, but it can dance the Twist or the Floss, grab a toy block or teddy bear, or hoist itself from a chair to take a long stroll along the wood floors of Fauna’s headquarters in New York City’s Flatiron District.

Cochran and co-founder Josh Merel, the company’s chief technology officer, demonstrated the robot this month ahead of its public launch. Fauna employees piloted the robot, using a video game controller, a phone application and a virtual-reality headset. Sprout also knows the office layout enough to be sent on a planned mission, such as to check out the inventory of the break room refrigerator.

It walks slowly but steadily on uneven ground. Only once it came close to tripping, taking a sharp turn to avoid a person and instead hitting its foot on a protruding table wheel too low to the ground to be seen by Sprout’s camera eyes. But the robot, built to handle what engineers call perturbation, quickly recovered its balance and kept walking, much like a clumsy person might.

“If you step in front of it, it won’t crash into you, it’ll plan a new path around you,” said Ana Pervan, a Fauna research scientist who works on the robot’s mapping and navigation. Among the first batch of Fauna’s 50 employees, and a fan of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, she previously worked on self-driving cars but was excited about joining a startup building something that might one day serve as a robot butler.

“It’s cute, and it’s not too humanoid, and I think that actually makes it a lot more fun,” Pervan said. “It’s not verging on creepy or trying to be too human. It’s like your buddy, your pal, that’s a different thing than you.”

BETTING ON HUMANOIDS

Starting a robot company can be unforgiving, especially one designing personal robots. One of the few successes, Roomba vacuum maker iRobot, had a decades-long run before filing for bankruptcy protection last month.

Most others didn’t last that long, like Anki, maker of the playful toy robot Cozmo, or Jibo, which went out of business less than a year after its dynamic talking speaker made the cover of Time Magazine’s 2017 “best inventions” edition.

“There were a lot of really brilliant attempts. I think the technology wasn’t quite there,” Cochran said. “I do think we’re right on the precipice now where you could build a companion that is present, engaging, delightful to be around, and can also move around a space in a way that nothing ever has before.”

Merel, an expert in robot locomotion, previously worked for Google’s DeepMind, where he focused on teaching robots using AI learning techniques in simulated environments, a controversial approach but now increasingly how robots are built. The science journal Nature published his study on an AI-powered virtual rat, co-authored with another of Fauna’s research scientists, Diego Aldarondo.

Cochran and Merel later worked together at CTRL-labs, a wearable neurotech company sold to Facebook in 2019. Cochran jokes that he then “spent a misguided four years at Goldman Sachs” before they decided to team up again.

Improvements in AI, motors and batteries have accelerated humanoid development. But Fauna’s founders agreed that the dystopian aesthetic of many prototypes — what Cochran calls “industrial automotive machismo” — conveyed strength and confidence but wouldn’t work for intimate human spaces.

“They were generally quite big and physically dangerous to be around,” Cochran said. “Strong, heavy. If they fell on you, it’d be a real problem.”

The duo brought in Anthony Moschella, who helped design Peloton’s exercise bikes, treadmills and rowers and is an admirer of the abstract designs of Star Wars robots like R2-D2 and BB-8.

“Let’s build a system that human beings actually want to be around,” said Moschella, now Fauna’s vice president of hardware. “I think it’s incredible that so many robotics companies are not versed in the cultural context of what it means to be around a robot.”

Moschella said what happens next with Sprout will depend on how developers play around with it and what they learn. For Cochran, some of the most important judges have already approved. In a home video he keeps on his phone, his 2-year-old twins excitedly jump up and down as Sprout greets them.

title: Approachable robots for humans


content_text:
SPEAK UP: Whitney Houston among 2026 Grammy ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ honorees (1/2) 惠妮榮獲葛萊美 「終身成就獎」（上）

A: British singer Calum Scott is currently touring Taiwan again, staging a show at the K-Arena on Saturday.

B: Didn’t Calum release a reimagined duet with the late pop diva Whitney Houston for her classic “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)?”

A: Yup the track uses the legendary singer’s original vocal, transforming into a new ballad duet.

B: I remember that the 1987 megahit topped the charts around the world, winning Whitney a second Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

A: And she will receive her Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on the eve of this year’s ceremony, set for Sunday.

A: 英國歌手卡倫史考特二度來台巡演，本週六即將在高雄巨蛋開唱。

B: 卡倫不是和已故流行天后惠妮休斯頓合作，推出她的經典名曲《與愛人共舞》新創對唱版？

A: 沒有錯，該曲使用這位傳奇天后的原始音檔，變身全新抒情對唱曲。

B: 我記得惠妮這首1987年金曲在全球各國奪冠，她並以此贏得第2座葛萊美最佳女歌手獎。

A: 她將於今年頒獎典禮前夕獲頒葛萊美「終身成就獎」！典禮則在本週日舉行。

（By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張迪）


title: 爭搶春節商機　「大江」福袋、發財金、純金元寶齊發

taiwan-subdivisions: 桃園 成功 中壢

content_text:
▲大江購物中心年貨伴手禮大賞。（圖／大江提供）

記者楊淑媛／桃園報導

春節連假進入倒數，不少民眾已開始規劃走春、聚餐與採買行程，看準年節外出人潮與消費需求，中壢區大江購物中心整合館內購物、餐飲與休閒娛樂等品牌，推出一站式「吃喝玩樂購」，以全新「開市迎福」主題佈置、限量新春福袋，連續三天發送開運發財金紅包，另加碼抽出純金元寶，搭配全年免費停車優勢，輕鬆迎接新春假期。

走春拍照 大江年節裝置登場

大江購物中心28日表示，大江近日換上全新藝術裝置，以「開市迎福」為主題打造一系列年節造景，搭配紅色牌樓、燈籠長廊與互動式裝置齊聚一樓中庭，營造宛如年節市集般的熱鬧氛圍，讓人一踏進商場就能感受濃濃年味。

牌樓下方鋪設紅色迎春步道，上頭印有「正月初一」、「新年」等字樣，象徵迎接新年的第一步，吸引不少顧客邊走邊拍，替春節假期暖身。另一側立體馬匹裝置同樣吸睛，金黃色造型散發好運與奔騰氣勢，象徵在新的一年「馬到成功」，也成為館內人氣打卡熱點之一。

▲大江購物中心伴手禮快閃店結合春節藝術裝置。（圖／大江提供）

除了靜態造景，大江購物中心也規劃「迎福籤運」互動式裝置，民眾只要按下按鈕，就能在螢幕上獲得馬年應景的祝福畫面，不少人拿起手機錄影、拍照分享到社群，為新年討個好兆頭，新春主題佈置將於現場展出至３月５日，讓民眾在春節期間及連假後仍能持續感受年節氛圍。

新春福袋好康多 大年初一限量開賣

每逢農曆新年之際，各家百貨紛紛推出象徵好運與驚喜的「福袋」商品，以超值價格入手高於售價的商品，成為不少消費者迎接新年的固定儀式。大江購物中心館內多家品牌陸續開幕新春開運福袋，讓消費者買到就賺到，歡迎民眾快來現場試試手氣，為新年增添好運與驚喜。

千份財神廟發財金 開春連續三天免費送

為迎接農曆新年新氣象，大江購物中心特別準備誠意滿滿的發財金新春限定活動，於2月17至19日連續三天免費發送發財金，搭配馬年創意開運小卡，預計送出1,000份與顧客同樂。業者表示，為了讓祝福更具象徵意義，今年發財金特別前往全台歷史最悠久、擁有逾三百年歷史的財神廟「桃園南崁五福宮」，希望將最真摯的新年祝福親手傳遞給消費者，為走春人潮增添一份溫暖與好運。

此外每日前30名排隊的顧客，還可以參加紅包加碼抽獎遊戲，其中包括價值超過七仟多元的純金元寶，讓民眾在逛街購物之餘，讓走春購物多一份祝福與年節喜氣。


title: 「桃小巴」貼心九人座小客車服務　新增10條路線2/1起上路

content_text:
▲「桃小巴」貼心九人座小客車服務。（圖／交通局提供）

記者楊淑媛／桃園報導

桃園市政府交通局28日表示，為提升市區公車服務品質及便利使用，持續推動「桃小巴」計畫，第二波10條路線於2月1日上路，包含大溪區、八德區及大園區，提供更靈活、貼心的九人座小客車服務，並同樣享有持市民卡乘車免費優惠。

交通局局長張新福表示，自去(114)年起推動市區公車轉型為桃小巴之後，民眾普遍反映搭乘更加便利，服務也有所提升。相較以往大型公車班次間距較長、行駛動線受限，桃小巴以九人座小客車營運，能依實際需求調整班次與路線，減少繞行與停等時間，整體行車時間縮短，不僅提升搭乘意願，也讓整體公共運輸系統運作更具效率。

▲轉型桃小巴的部分路段。（圖／交通局提供）

本次2月1日上路的桃小巴路線，涵蓋八德區免費公車L115、L117、L121等路線，大溪區免費公車L705、L706、L712，以及市區公車5097等七條路線轉型為桃小巴，此七條桃小巴的路線與站點皆與原先的公車路線相同，也維持免費乘車，僅班次時刻微調，原有乘客搭乘不受影響。

市區公車5081、5081A及5017等三條路線則是將部分區間路段轉型為九人座桃小巴路線服務。5081、5081A及5017路線維持由桃園客運服務「中壢總站」往返「高鐵桃園站」區間，並維持既有市區客運收費費率且享有市民卡乘車優惠。「高鐵桃園站」往返「大園」區間則是由桃小巴營運業者台灣真好公司營運之5081B、5081C路線，以及營運「高鐵桃園站」往返「竹圍」區間之5017A路線。5081B、5081C、5017A等三條桃小巴路線，搭乘民眾使用「桃園市民卡」刷卡即可享有免費乘車優惠。

▲「桃小巴」新增10條路線。（圖／交通局提供）

張新福表示，前揭路線轉型桃小巴後，班次有所增加。八德區L115、L117、L121路線由現行合計每日6班次增加為7班次，大溪區L705、L706、L712路線由現行合計平日12班次/假日6班次增加為平日12班次/假日7班次，5097路線則維持每日往返合計12班次。大園區5017A路線由現行合計每日往返合計4班次增加為平日8班次假日4班次，5081B及5081C等兩路線由現行合計每日往返合計6班次增加為18班次，提升班次密度，提升乘車便利，鼓勵市民多加利用公共運輸。

taiwan-subdivisions: 中壢 大園 桃園 八德 大溪


title: 移民署桃園站推新住民獎助學金　助力家庭教育與就業

countries: 臺灣 越南

content_text:
▲移民署桃園站宣導「新住民及子女培力與獎助（勵）學金計畫」。（圖／桃園站提供）

記者楊淑媛／桃園報導

為協助新住民適應臺灣生活並提升對相關福利及法令的認識，移民署桃園市服務站日前舉辦新住民家庭教育及法令宣導課程，宣導「114學年度新住民及子女培力與獎助（勵）學金計畫」，並邀請來自越南的新住民姊妹楊金泉，分享她在臺灣的生活經驗與學習歷程，透過個人故事鼓勵新住民勇於學習，提升自我能力。

桃園市服務站指出，為鼓勵新住民及其子女努力向學，移民署「114學年度新住民及子女培力與獎助（勵）學金計畫」即將在115年2月23日受理報名，獎項包括新住民子女特殊才能獎勵金、總統教育獎勵金、新住民及子女優秀及清寒獎（助）學金與新住民證照獎勵金。

▲桃園新住民分享考照有獎勵金。（圖／桃園站提供）

核發金額視申請獎項核予新臺幣2,000元至5萬元不等獎助（勵）學金，歡迎符合資格的新住民及其子女踴躍提出申請。詳細計畫內容可至移民署全球資訊網或新住民培力發展資訊網查詢，或聯繫移民署移民事務組沈先生，電話(02)2388-9393分機2525，以獲取進一步資訊。

楊金泉以自身的經驗，與新住民姊妹分享，新住民從不同地方來到臺灣，未來的生活將在臺灣落地生根，鼓勵新住民努力學好中文，除了能與家人溝通，在工作上也能儘快融入職場。除了學習中文，她也鼓勵新住民考取證照，提升就業競爭力，她以自己為例，努力考取到中餐丙級技術士證照，接著向移民署申請「新住民及子女培力與獎助（勵）學金計畫」中的新住民證照獎勵金，激勵其積極學習。


title: 酒駕累犯拒繳45萬元罰鍰 花蓮男帳戶突進帳千萬遭凍結

content_text:
花蓮50多歲林姓男子，多次酒後騎機車上路，去年6月間不僅酒精濃度超標還無照，被裁罰45萬元繳了幾期後就拒繳，遭監理所移送強制執行。法務部行政執行署花蓮分署上月受理，積極清查林男名下財產，近日發現突然進帳千萬元，立即凍結，林男才願意繳清罰款。

法務部行政執行署花蓮分署指出，林姓男子家住新城鄉，過去被查獲酒駕次數至少5、6次。去年6月間在新城鄉的台9線路段，被新城警分局員警查獲酒後無照騎機車，屬酒駕累犯，遭花蓮監理站依道路交通管理處罰條例第35條第3項規定重罰45萬元。

花蓮分署表示，當時林男申請分18期，每期繳2萬5000元，但繳了5期後就不再付錢，遭移送到花蓮分署強制執行，受理後，清查林男名下財產，發現存款帳戶金額僅有幾百到幾千元。不過，花蓮分署人員相當積極，密集清查掌握他的帳戶狀況，近期發現有一筆上千萬元鉅款入帳，這個月初立刻核發扣押命令，凍結帳戶。

林姓男子發現帳戶被凍結無法動支，馬上跑到行政執行署花蓮分署，向執行人員表示希望可以申請分期繳納，由於林男存款顯足以一次清償，花蓮分署未准予分期，仍依法收取，成功為國庫追回罰鍰。 花蓮分署強調，酒駕事件頻傳，每每造成無辜民眾傷亡及家庭破碎，酒後駕車為國人深惡痛絕行為，更已成為全民公敵。

花蓮分署呼籲，適逢農曆春節前夕，飲宴活動頻繁，花蓮分署近期啟動酒駕專案，針對相關案件採取強力執行措施，全力遏止酒駕歪風，希望民眾切勿酒後駕車，以免害人害己，傷及荷包，萬一受到裁罰，亦應儘速繳納。

☆飲酒過量 有害健康 禁止酒駕☆

taiwan-subdivisions: 花蓮 成功 新城


title: 中壢貨車滿載廢家電冒濃煙起火 司機急停邊滅火邊搬貨

content_text:
桃園市1輛滿載廢棄家電貨車今（28）日上午行經中壢區普忠路、榮民南路口時，車斗後方突然冒出濃煙，駕駛李姓男子察覺後立即下車忙著滅火與搬運貨品。（記者李容萍翻攝）

桃園市一輛滿載廢棄家電貨車今（28）日上午行經中壢區普忠路、榮民南路口時，車斗後方突然冒出濃煙，駕駛李姓男子察覺後立即下車忙著滅火與搬運貨品；中壢警、消據報後立即趕赴現場灌救與管制交通，所幸迅速撲滅火勢，李男也未受傷。至於起火原因由桃園市消防局火調科調查釐清中。

中壢警分局仁愛派出所今日上午9時59分許獲報，55歲李姓男子駕駛滿載廢棄家電貨車行經普忠路、榮民南路口，察覺後車斗冒煙起火，立即派員到場進行交通管制，消防人員抵達後迅速灌救，後車斗內家電廢棄物燃燒面積約2平方公尺，現場無人受困、受傷。

警、消表示，李男發現車輛冒煙後，立即停靠路邊，幸運逃過一劫且未受傷，消防局第二大隊中壢分隊共出動消防人員4名、消防車2輛，消防人員於上午10時2分許抵達、10時18分許撲滅火勢、10時23分許殘火處理完畢。

taiwan-subdivisions: 中壢 仁愛 桃園


title: 驚喜變驚嚇！高市刑大遭烏龍爆料 引基層不滿

content_text:
高市刑警大隊長鄢志豪已逾3年任期，一度傳有機會北升刑事局，因屢破重大刑案，被留任輔助新上任的局長，穩定治安，同事們原以為他將北調，計畫合送手錶紀念並祝福，給予驚喜，因鄢留任而取消，但美意竟遭烏龍爆料，引發基層官警怒指「其心可誅」。

發起集資的官警紛紛為鄢大隊長抱屈，他們表示原本只想給「驚喜」，卻成「驚嚇」，因猜大隊長可能不會收，才私下醖釀集資買Apple Watch，未讓大隊長知道同事心意，反遭有心人扭曲成「馬屁文化」，事實上是送舊非迎新，懷念也祝福，完全自願並無對價，更何況最終留任，集資買錶祝賀計畫，也隨之取消。

刑大官警表示，一般禮俗多為贈送花籃，一旦沒有空間放置，反而造成長期困擾，難怪新上任的彰化警察局長陳世煌，一口氣捐出80多盆花籃給彰化家扶中心義賣，除感謝贈者的祝福，也轉化為幫助弱勢的資源。

官警表示，當事人並不知同事們的計畫，況且調離高雄擔任他職已管不到下屬升遷，送紀念品（手錶）祝福表達情誼，怎成「馬屁文化」？對於烏龍爆料影響他人清譽，引起基層官警反感，盼督察單位揪出惡意抹黑警界形象，還刑大官警單純初心及當事人的清白。

taiwan-subdivisions: 彰化 高雄


title: 加拿大維持利率不變　警告不確定性上升

countries: 加拿大 美國

content_text:
加拿大央行宣布維持利率在2.25厘不變，符合市場預期。

不過央行表示，不確定性上升，主要來自對美墨加協定（USMCA）。央行指，正密切監測風險，若前景發生變化，已準備好作出應對。在經濟按大致預測演變的前提下，目前利率水平是適當。

央行提到，前景自去年10月以來變化不大，但仍然受到不可預測的美國貿易政策及地緣政治風險影響。

央行預測通脹將在期內保持接近2%的目標水平，而美國關稅對通脹的影響，在今年稍後時間會逐漸消退。

央行又預計，美國經濟將保持穩健，主要由人工智能相關投資和消費支出推動。


content_text:
美國攀岩好手艾力克斯霍諾德成功完成徒手攀登台北101，震撼全球，大批民眾紛紛到台北101底下拍照打卡，還引發模仿潮，不少人嘗試攀爬台北101，甚至傳出大樓外觀疑似出現變形的狀況，網友發現有處屋簷尖端疑似往下垂，且隙縫處也比其他的地方還要大。

美國攀岩好手艾力克斯霍諾德花91分鐘成功登頂台北101，直播創下全球620萬觀看次數，在台灣更登上節目排行榜冠軍。事後大批民眾跑到101底下拍照打卡，甚至還模仿攀爬，傳出台北101一樓屋簷疑似出現歪斜！

101部分周邊區域已拉起警示線，但依舊有不少民眾來拍照，有網友在社群上發文透露，有一處屋簷尖端疑似往下垂，且縫隙處也比其他地方還要大。消息一出掀起熱議，不少人痛批屋簷被一堆人弄壞了，但也有人表示應該不會這麼脆弱就彎了，可能是本來的設計。

網友發現一處屋簷尖端疑似往下垂，且縫隙處也比其他的地方還要大。圖／台視新聞台北101則回應，若未經許可，請勿以任何形式攀爬，將持續加強巡查與管制，對於未經許可的攀爬行為會依法處理。台灣人工智慧實驗室創辦人提出一個想法，建議設一座世界第一個徒手攀爬的紀念碑，還有網友提議設立類似Q版的攀岩牆，讓人打卡，就能避免攀爬亂象！

台北／張綺云、黃聖權 責任編輯／施佳宜

journalist: 責任編輯／施佳宜

countries: 台灣 美國

title: 霍諾德攀101掀模仿潮！ 屋簷疑「被掰彎下垂且縫隙大」


content_text:
說到農業科技，很多人腦中可能還停在無人機、感測器那一套，但工研院這次選擇一條更接地氣的路線直接走進果園。在新竹峨眉、芎林滿山滿谷的桶柑園裡，一台「上山下田都能跑」的電動搬運車，正在改變果農的採收日常，讓科技不只酷，別說還真的很有用。

你知道嗎？全台近五成的桶柑，其實都來自新竹縣的峨眉鄉與芎林鄉。每到農曆年前後，桶柑進入盛產期，看起來是豐收好消息，但對果農來說，卻也是一場體力硬仗。

桶柑多種在坡地，採收時得在陡坡、碎石路之間來回搬運，一籃一籃扛上來，對腰、對膝蓋都是長期消耗，再加上缺工問題，效率和安全都成了大挑戰。

【點擊看完整全文】更多鏡報報導快訊／13票輾壓過關 何志強接掌國票證董座邱榮澄為新總經理 旺旺派主導時代結束獨家專訪／改選風暴山雨欲來 陳冠如：旺中派董監不過半國票金才有新氣象獨家專訪／網紅流量操作特定議題 陳冠如：恐有國安風險

journalist: 鏡報

taiwan-subdivisions: 新竹縣 新竹 峨眉 芎林

title: 工研院把第三代半導體直接開進桶柑園 氮化鎵科技穿梭坡地扛累活 - 鏡週刊 Mirror Media


content_text:
南韓大田一名年約60多歲的A男，因長期不滿樓下住戶製造噪音，在未查證是哪戶在吵鬧的狀況下，竟將滾燙的食用油灑在前來關心的50多歲B男身上，造成他全身多處燒燙傷，整整治療6週才康復。原先法官判A男3年有期徒刑，但A男嫌判太重提出上訴，二審法官認為，A男毫無悔意，決定加重刑責，改判5年有期徒刑。

噪音引衝突 無辜鄰居遭潑油

根據《東亞日報》報導，此起事件發生在2025年7月5日，A男受不了樓下鄰居不斷製造噪音，於是心生一計，決定展開報復計畫。他先故意在自家瘋狂開關門、用力踩踏製造巨大聲響，鄰居B男驚覺不對勁，與友人一同上門想了解情況，沒想到門一開，A男竟直接朝他潑灑滾燙的食用油，相當恐怖。

令人不寒而慄的是，A男在潑灑熱油後，竟持利器恐嚇B男身旁的友人。這場突如其來的恐怖襲擊，導致B男全身遭受大面積的劇烈燒燙傷，在醫院治療長達6週後，才勉強從這場噩夢中康復。

法官加重刑期 判囚5年

此案經法院審理，原先判決3年有期徒刑，不過，A男卻認為刑期太重，選擇再提出上訴。大田地方法院刑事上訴庭法官在審理時指出，A男在沒確認噪音製造者的情況下，就進行無差別攻擊，讓B男飽受燒燙傷、毀容之苦，A男在事後也沒有向被害人道歉、賠償，認為他毫無悔意，因此加重刑期，改判有期徒刑5年。

journalist: 東森新聞

title: 韓男找錯人報仇！朝鄰居潑熱油害毀容 遭判5年 - 鏡週刊 Mirror Media


content_text:
一名中國籍男子，經營線上博弈事業，看上台灣工程師的專業能力，10年前來台成立公司，招募工程師設計軟體程式，全案宛如太子集團翻版。如今台灣端負責人被聲請羈押。

穿著綠色羽絨衣，他是資訊公司負責人，被調查局帶進北檢，他一臉淡定，經過複訊，直接被檢方聲押。被約談的還有帳房女會計，涉犯賭博、洗錢等罪，以50萬交保，但限制出境出海。

檢調查出一名中國籍蘇姓男子，2016年帶著龐大資金來台成立公司，對外標榜資訊軟體服務，看似正派經營，卻猶如太子集團翻版。因為實際上，他們從事網路博弈軟體程式設計，台灣端交由朱姓負責人在海外上架，從事網路博弈事業，辦公室還租在台北信義區頂級商辦大樓「南山廣場」，疑似製作大量不實交易，掩飾金流，打造營業假像。

檢調兵分4路搜索，約談、拘提12人，其中9名員工諭令10萬到30萬元交保，如今朱姓負責人被聲押，北檢也將查個清楚。

東森新聞關心您犯罪行為，請勿模仿

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countries: 中國 台灣 日本

taiwan-subdivisions: 信義區 高雄

title: 太子集團2.0？中國男在台設公司 經營線上博弈 - 鏡週刊 Mirror Media


content_text:
財經中心／余國棟報導

1kW模組穩定供應大電流，確保維持人工智慧算力並優化系統能耗。（圖／聯寶提供）

2025年外部經營環境變動劇烈，包含銅、錫、銀等原物料價格上漲，以及DRAM供應緊張所帶來的成本與交期壓力，皆為產業營運帶來不小挑戰，回顧2025年營運表現，聯寶(6821)全年合併營收達5.82億元，較去年同期成長2.84％，創歷年同期新高，公司持續深化磁性元件核心技術與研發量能，相關產品廣泛應用於LAN、無線基地台及PoE供電架構，並受惠歐洲電信市場景氣回升，以及各國加速推動網通升級計畫，帶動旗下PoE電源變壓器及LAN類變壓器出貨動能穩健成長。

董事長譚明珠指出，全球產業正逐步邁入新一輪成長曲線，AI應用快速起飛，帶動各項創新需求湧現，面對產業趨勢轉變，聯寶在AI相關領域將不缺席，並持續將既有技術實力轉化為具體成長動能，公司已推進多項新產品的新應用布局，特別是1000W等級的電源模組將問世，體積僅姆指大小的1KW高功率電源模組，後續將導入AI伺服器相關應用，強化AI供應鏈關鍵元件布局與長期競爭力。

無線充電模組領域，聯寶（LinkCom）展現強大的擴張動能。除穩固大健康（如運動健身器材與手持醫療設備）利基市場外，更採取多角化布局策略，將應用版圖延伸至智慧生活（家俱、智慧家電、IoT/穿戴裝置）、休閒娛樂（賭博機台、遊戲周邊）及工業應用（電動工具）等多元場域，全面搶攻智慧連接時代的充電商機。

展望2026年，聯寶將持續聚焦高附加價值產品與應用場域的深化布局，營運策略以AI相關應用、高功率電源模組及智慧模組解決方案為核心推進方向，在網通領域方面，隨著Wi-Fi 7逐步進入商用階段，並朝向Wi-Fi 8規格演進，高頻寬與低延遲應用需求持續提升，聯寶已提前布局新一代通訊標準所需的高頻磁性元件，同時，DOCSIS 4.0規格預期將於北美市場逐步放量，帶動有線電視及寬頻設備升級需求，聯寶亦已完成相關產品布局。

另一方面，磁性元件業務受惠歐洲電信市場景氣回升及各國網通升級計畫推進，PoE電源變壓器與LAN類變壓器出貨動能可望維持穩健表現，為進一步提升客戶價值，聯寶亦規劃推出針對PoE設備常見EMI超標問題的變壓器與電感一站式協同解決方案，協助客戶優化設計流程、縮短產品上市時程，不僅如此，聯寶持續推進無線充電業務轉型，透過開拓具備較高客製化需求與技術門檻的非消費型高利基應用領域，有助提升整體產品附加價值，目前無線充電模組已成功切入醫療手持設備、穿戴式裝置及健身器材等應用市場，且聯寶同步拓展亞太與歐洲市場、擴大無線充電業務版圖，為集團中長期營運成長注入新動能。

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內容僅供參考，投資人於決策時應審慎評估風險，並就投資結果自行負責。

投資一定有風險，基金投資有賺有賠，申購前應詳閱公開說明書。

更多三立新聞網報導． 美股多空撕裂！醫療股成最大黑天鵝 韓股不甩加徵關稅創高． 台股盤前／標普寫史高美股震盪！台指夜盤先衝191點 開盤拚續寫新高． 籌碼／ 外資週狂賣338億 光這2檔被砍逾32萬張出事了嗎？． 台積電狂賺只是開始！它持股結構曝光 難怪績效這麼猛

journalist: 三立新聞

title: 歐洲電信回溫網通升級 聯寶變壓器吃紅利 - 鏡週刊 Mirror Media


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2026縣市長大選，國民黨柯志恩與謝龍介為了爭取更多台南、高雄的民眾支持，表示兩人會區域聯合，共同提出對南部選民有幫助的政見。這時民進黨高雄市長參選人賴瑞隆則說，這些議題操作，配合紅軍來攻擊都不會有成效。會有這樣的說法，全因國民黨中央宣布重啟國共論壇，柯志恩也被問到是否擔心這件事衝擊選情，強調都是過度操作。

代表國民黨參戰高雄市長的柯志恩拋策略，與同黨要選台南市長的謝龍介，針對維冠大樓倒塌十週年一同開記者會，提政策目標，宣示在2026南高市長選戰展開攻勢。

高雄市長參選人（國）柯志恩：「你說這叫區域聯合，那我們完全也同意這樣一個未來的選戰的策略。」

高雄市長參選人（民）賴瑞隆：「你做任何的區域聯防，做更多議題的操作，或者配合紅軍、藍軍、網軍來進行各項的攻擊，都不會有成效的。」

民進黨要拚接班陳其邁的賴瑞隆立刻回嗆，強調中國因素，全因國民黨這時宣布舉辦國共智庫交流，有可能影響南部選情。

高雄市長參選人（國）柯志恩：「國民黨提出了什麼樣的改革，好像就一定要跟對岸來做一個綁標、做一個掛勾，我覺得這都是過度的一個政治上的操作。」

高雄市長參選人（民）賴瑞隆：「你的心不在高雄、不在台南的話，人民看得很清楚，包括在這一次的總預算的審查，裡面有非常多影響到高雄的建設。」

藍綠隔空交鋒，要挑戰綠營優勢選區，謝龍介一致發聲。台南市長參選人（國）謝龍介：「我們追求和平，南部選民一定會接受的。」

台南市長參選人（民）陳亭妃：「我覺得國民黨現在再做任何動作，其實都在搬石頭砸自己。」

台南市長參選人（國）謝龍介：「你每天赤炎炎，要跟人家挑戰要鬥爭，哪一個重要的布局跟戰略，不是國民黨留下來的。」

台南市長參選人（民）陳亭妃：「你們現在就在搞兩岸交流，這用意是什麼，難道你們都在做對岸相關的工作嗎。」

台南市長參選人（國）謝龍介：「我們反對的是凱子軍購，不要把台灣人當盼仔，不要汙名化，也不需要扣紅帽子。」

藍綠各就各位，從國共論壇吵到軍購，也讓選民聞到選戰開打煙硝味。

【往下看更多】● 快訊／前蘇澳鎮長李坤山辭世 享壽87歲 ● 民進黨候選人突宣布退選！原因曝光 黨部回應了 ● 詐領助理費1455萬！國民黨市議員黃紹庭一度失聯 二審出爐

【今日最熱門】● 不滿員工跳槽對手！ 「張美阿嬤」兒空投毒死羊駝 ● 黃金又漲破記錄！白銀價格也狂噴 單月漲破5成 ● LINE要付費了？訂閱制2026上半年上線 5功能一次看

countries: 中國 台灣

people: 柯志恩 謝龍介 賴瑞隆 李坤山 黃紹庭 陳其邁 陳亭妃

taiwan-subdivisions: 高雄 蘇澳 高雄市 和平

title: 柯志恩、謝龍介合體！拋「區域聯合」拚藍南高選情 - 鏡週刊 Mirror Media


content_text:
日本第一學府東京大學又有1名醫學院教授涉嫌收賄而遭到逮捕，是近幾個月來第二起。東大校長藤井輝夫今天在記者會上公開道歉。（取自東京大學官網）

日本第一學府東京大學又有1名醫學院教授涉嫌收賄而遭到逮捕，是近幾個月來第二起。東大校長藤井輝夫今天在記者會上公開道歉。

法新社報導，去年11月才有1名東大整形外科副教授被控收受醫療器材商賄賂，而遭到逮捕。東京警方上週又逮捕東大皮膚科教授佐藤伸一，他涉嫌接受日本化妝品協會（Japan Cosmetic Association）招待至高檔餐廳和女公關店消費，甚至接受泡泡浴性服務。

設於東京的日本化妝品協會尋求用大麻二酚（CBD）來製作護膚品的商機。據日本「朝日新聞」報導，這個協會希望與佐藤合作對大麻二酚進行共同研究，盼利用東大聲望展現這類產品對膚況的功效；但在佐藤試圖勒索現金後，其負責人便向警方求助。

東大委任律師表示，相關賄賂從2023年2月開始，直到2024年9月雙方關係惡化為止。校長藤井也證實，東京檢方正在調查1名曾與佐藤合作的已離任東大皮膚科副教授，以釐清他在這起賄賂醜聞中扮演的角色。

藤井在記者會上表示：「我們作為教育和研究機構，深深辜負了社會信任，我們致上最深切誠摯的歉意。」他並承諾推動校內改革。

title: 2醫學教授接連涉賄 日本東大校長公開道歉 - 國際


content_text:
美國智庫「傳統基金會」最新報告指出，中國人民解放軍的後勤補給體系，在與美國爆發衝突前與衝突期間，極易受到美軍各種手段干擾破壞。（美聯社檔案照）

美國智庫「傳統基金會」（Heritage Foundation）最新發布的報告指出，美國在與中國的潛在軍事衝突中，面臨致命的「後勤持續力風險」（sustainment risks），可能導致美軍在衝突初期即遭遇潰敗。但中國人民解放軍的後勤補給體系，在衝突前與衝突期間也極易受到美軍各種手段干擾破壞。

香港「南華早報」28日報導，這項名為「巨浪行動」（Tidalwave）的研究，利用人工智慧（AI）結合超過7000個資料來源，模擬美中兩國在西太平洋進行為期365天的武裝衝突，結果呈現一致模式：戰爭的勝負在最初30至60天內就會定調，關鍵在於載台（飛機與船艦）損耗的速度，以及後勤系統承受壓力的極限。

報告指出，中國在燃油與彈藥系統上的重大弱點，包括中國能源供應存在高度外部依賴性，形成戰略上的「馬六甲困境」。中國目前約70％原油需求仰賴進口，其中高達80％必須經由馬六甲海峽。若美軍能與盟友達成協議，在衝突期間對此航道實施攔截，將可迅速切斷中國的海上原油補給。

一旦進口中斷，中國國內的戰略儲備將在短時間內耗盡，進而癱瘓其武裝部隊的持續作戰能力。

其次，解放軍的燃料持續力嚴重依賴少數實體基礎設施。報告點名寧波舟山港等深水港口、碼頭，以及缺乏工事加固防護的固定式煉油設施，均為極易受損的戰略目標。報告指出，這些基礎設施在現代長程精準火力、導能武器，甚至是網路攻擊面前，較其支援的作戰部隊更為脆弱。一旦這些物流節點遭到系統性破壞，解放軍將陷入裝備缺乏燃料供應的窘境。

再者，在彈藥補給方面，解放軍依賴固定的生產與儲存據點，且需仰賴民用運輸網絡進行配送，這些節點極易遭到動能打擊（kinetic strikes）。此外，其數位物流管理系統在衝突中，同樣具備容易遭到網路攻擊的脆弱性。報告指出，這類風險將使解放軍面臨補給持續力問題，難以支撐長期的持續衝突。

美軍方面，報告指出，美軍目前過於依賴關島等少數大型中心化樞紐，這些基地極易成為共軍首波打擊目標。此外，美軍海上加油機隊老化、西海岸戰略補給能力脆弱，已成為制約美軍戰力的關鍵瓶頸。

報告特別警示美軍彈藥庫存的短缺問題，尤其是長程精準導引彈藥與魚雷，目前的數量「幾乎肯定不足」以應付高強度衝突。同時，美國國防工業基礎萎縮，戰爭期間生產關鍵彈藥的速度，恐無法滿足消耗需求。

報告結尾以1943年同名的「巨浪行動」（轟炸納粹德國在羅馬尼亞的煉油廠）為例強調，唯有切斷敵軍賴以維繫戰力的燃油與補給，才能加速戰爭的終結。若美軍不具備阻止台灣陷落的能力，日本等「第一島鏈」的其他盟邦也將面臨威脅。

countries: 羅馬尼亞 台灣 美國 中國 德國 日本 香港

taiwan-subdivisions: 六甲 太平

title: 美智庫報告：共軍後勤補給體系脆弱 極易遭美軍干擾破壞 - 國際


content_text:
台中市豐原區一處蛋雞場確診禽流感。中市府調查，案場在1月10日出現禽流感症狀，10日至26日死亡雞隻逾1700隻，期間仍繼續出售雞蛋並有貨車進入養雞場，市府釐清相關傳播鏈。

台中市豐原區一處蛋雞場近日出現雞隻大量異常死亡，台中市政府26日晚間獲報，27日派員前往採驗送驗，現場發現雞隻出現呼吸窘迫等疑似禽流感症狀，更有部分死雞在場內就地被掩埋，上午開立移動管制通知書。稽查人員巡視養雞場周邊環境未發現死雞蹤影。親送檢體至獸醫研究所。

台中市長盧秀燕28日上午宣布，該案場檢驗結果確診禽流感，全場雞隻將撲殺，業者涉隱匿疫情，依法開罰。市府調查，業者稱1月10日開始出現禽流感症狀。市府統計，自1月10日至26日死亡雞隻逾1700隻。

據了解，該禽場位於豐原區、潭子區交界，地處偏僻，周圍半徑1公里內並無大型養雞場，僅有少數人家飼養10來隻雞，半徑3公里內有3家禽場。市府因應疫情成立前進指揮所，28日中午時完成案場及鄰近3禽場消毒工作，並對所有工作人員、人車進行管制。

有民眾日前在網路社群發文，稱是住在後面工廠的人家，這2週一直有發現豐原地區某家賣蛋的雞場有不明大量死雞，疑似還埋在養雞場裡面花園裡，有些還用布袋裝袋不知道要載去哪裡。案場附近鄰居告訴中央社記者表示，近日沒有聞到臭味，看到新聞才知道該案場確診禽流感。

農業局表示，因業者未主動通報，將依「動物傳染病防治條例」規定，不予補償撲殺動物與銷毀物品的損失，並處新台幣5萬元以上、100萬元以下罰鍰。死亡雞隻未依規定送化製處理，也將依「畜牧法」裁罰。另外，出現症狀期間，有宅配業者貨車進出養雞場，正調查是否還有去其他的雞場，釐清進出人員足跡。

events: 禽流感 疫情 死亡

taiwan-subdivisions: 布袋 豐原區 潭子區

title: 台中蛋雞場染禽流感涉隱匿 1/10即出現症狀仍出蛋 - 生活


content_text:
高雄捷運貓站長蜜柑系列文創品去年總業績逾2400萬元，比前年大增50%，粉絲大讚蜜柑是高捷「真」招財貓!

蜜柑2020年4月4日出生、公的，原本在外流浪，被高捷橋頭糖廠站認養，因為是橘色、蜷縮起來像橘子，取名「蜜柑」，2020年9月正式上任糖廠站貓站長。

擅長行銷的高捷除細心呵護蜜柑，也以蜜柑為主角建立粉專、IG，並開發系列文創品，逐漸累積人氣，2023年參加台北文博會寫下6天破百萬元業績，寫下流浪貓變身招財貓傳奇。

高捷進一步設立蜜柑專櫃，並主動找尋跨域、跨國合作機會，日前首創臺灣神界與貓界的跨界聯名，偕同高雄市政府與北港朝天宮攜手文創，讓蜜柑虎袍加身，並推出聯名彩繪輕軌「蜜柑站長萌虎平安號」，成功製造話題，連市長陳其邁都讚嘆。

高捷統計，蜜柑上任5年來除累積龐大人氣，其周邊文創品累積逾百種，前年業績一舉突破千萬元、達1600萬元（成長25%），去年銷售額估算飆破2400萬元、成長率激增50%。

粉絲看蜜柑更是越看越喜愛，有人隨時緊盯系列文創品、有新貨就搶購，有人每月會去橋頭糖廠探班、看看蜜柑萌樣；民眾則佩服高捷的創意，形容蜜柑是高捷「真」招財貓。

taiwan-subdivisions: 高雄 橋頭 成功 北港 高雄市

title: 高捷「真」招財貓！蜜柑站長文創業績破2400萬 年增50％寫傳奇 - 生活


content_text:
「立春」是為財庫補金的最佳時間點！（達志影像）

〔娛樂頻道／綜合報導〕下週即將迎來24節氣之首「立春」，命理師提醒12生肖的朋友，此時天地萬物將從冬日的「水」行閉藏狀態，步入「木」行主導的生長、向上突破時節；若將這股「木氣」的能量特質，直接映射到財富創造邏輯：它代表著機遇的萌芽、計劃的啟動、行動的擴張與收益的增長潛力，就如同「財富春耕」，從翻土、播種、育苗、種植到幼苗照護，若能根據作物需求，制定合理的灌溉計劃，2026下半年獲利至少多3成。

【立春理財3步驟: 清、定、剪】

研究幸運命理多年菲菲老師，進一步解釋「財富春耕」3步驟的具體實踐方式。她強調，立春的這股「木氣」，雖主生長，但其性屬「曲直」，需要適當引導方能成材，從心智、行為、資源與風險，都須謹慎以對，便能為2026年的財運循環開機、生生不息。

→第1步「盤點清明」：徹底列出所有資產與負債，看清財務淨值的真實起點。

→第2步「目標錨定」：設定一個具體、可衡量、有期限的年度財務核心目標。

→第3步「剪枝行動」：立即取消一項非必要訂閱或消費，將資源導向目標。

這套 「清、定、剪」流程，正是將立春「木氣」從雜亂生長導向有序成果的關鍵儀式。

➤鼠

．財庫補金行動：重點在提升決策效率以利管理財。宜整理所有投資帳戶與合同文件，歸納關鍵條款與日期，做出「繼續、觀察或止損」的明確決斷列表。

➤牛

．財庫補金行動：鞏固核心收入，避免人情損財。宜審視所有自動扣款與訂閱服務，取消不必要的項目。對於朋友的合夥或借貸提議，本季一律採取「暫緩、書面化」原則。

➤虎

．財庫補金行動：穩固正財，防範突發損耗。宜檢查名下車輛、貴重電子產品的保固狀態，並為家庭主要收入來源者檢視保險保障是否充足。

➤兔

．財庫補金行動：將人緣轉化為優質財源。宜梳理人脈清單，主動與能帶來專業知識或市場資訊的朋友聯繫，聚焦交流行業趨勢，而非單純閒聊娛樂。

➤龍

．財庫補金行動：建立娛樂消費預算框架。宜使用記帳軟體，為餐飲、社交娛樂設置月度預算上限，並嚴格遵守，享受快樂的同時守住財庫邊界。

➤蛇

．財庫補金行動：將專業知識系統化、產品化。宜整理過往成功案例或作品集，思考能否將其轉化為標準化服務、線上課程或諮詢方案，開闢新的價值變現路徑。

➤馬

．財庫補金行動：將創意落實為有價值的計劃。宜選擇一個最具潛力的商業點子，為其撰寫簡要的商業計劃書，包括成本、收益與執行時間表，使其從空想進入可評估階段。

➤羊

．財庫補金行動：在合作中明確價值與權益。宜檢視現有合作協議，確保利益分配清晰。任何新合作，務必先小人後君子，將分工與分潤白紙黑字寫明。

➤猴

．財庫補金行動：有效管理並整合人脈資源。宜將人脈按行業、專長分類，思考如何促成不同圈子朋友之間的有價值連結，使自己成為資源的樞紐，而非被動的接收者。

➤雞

．財庫補金行動：透過斷捨離實現能量流通。宜檢視家中貴重但閒置的物品（如名牌包、首飾、電子產品），考慮通過二手平台出售，將「死資產」變為活現金。

➤狗

．財庫補金行動：強化財務夥伴間的信任與規則。宜與重要的財務合夥人（包括配偶）開一次家庭財務會議，同步收支情況，共同審視並確認年度的重大財務目標與紀律。

➤豬

．財庫補金行動：專注本業，以穩健表現鞏固財源。宜主動與上司溝通今年的績效目標與期望薪資，並制定詳細的季度工作計劃，用可預期的出色表現鎖定正財增長。

菲菲老師提醒，「財富春耕」要從清、定、剪3步驟做起。（菲菲老師提供）

【菲菲老師 專家小檔案】

．專長：觀元辰、獨門八字、民俗科儀、解夢解籤、道法開符．經歷：節目《命運好好玩》專任命理老師、禾郁國際有限公司 創業顧問、幸運命理社團創辦人、曜鑽國際有限公司 命理顧問、1111創業加盟網 創業顧問

．命運好好玩官網：看這裡．命運好好玩FB：看這裡

☆民俗說法僅供參考☆

title: 立春做好「財富春耕」 2026下半年獲利多3成


content_text:
陳家維、曹錦輝。（本報資料照）

〔體育中心／綜合報導〕今天中國城市棒球聯賽（CPB）例行賽最終戰，廈門海豚以10：2大勝福州海俠，效力海豚的前統一獅內野大物陳家維，也在比賽中大秀「二刀流」。

陳家維原名楊家維，於2014年中職季中選秀會獲得獅隊第2指名，但一軍生涯6個賽季只累積184場出賽、打擊率0.229、攻擊指數0.658、OPS+73的成績單，在2021年10月因酒駕遭開除，結束職棒生涯，並在CPB成立後前往中國打球，加入廈門海豚隊。

由於今天賽前已經確定無緣季後賽，廈門海豚輕鬆應戰，第9局甚至派出陳家維登板投球，他投0.2局沒有被敲安打，還飆出1次三振；另外，前統一獅投手李嘉祥也在比賽後段上場代跑，並獲得1打席機會，最終選到保送。

此役廈門海豚先發投手是前富邦悍將自培的蘇捷恩，他先發3局失2分有1分責失，送出3次三振與2次保送，最終廈門海豚團隊敲10安灌進10分大勝，但因賽前已確定例行賽勝率墊底，廈門海豚仍成為唯一1支無緣晉級季後賽的球隊。

另外，今年1月10日加盟福州海俠的44歲前旅美球星曹錦輝，原本預計1月13日要先發出賽，但他仍在調整狀態，因此初登板時間往後延宕；然而今天他依舊沒有上場，如今例行賽已經結束，曹錦輝是否有望在季後賽登場也成謎團。

同樣效力福州海俠的前獅隊1指黃勇傳，今天代打1打數0安打，例行賽最終15場全勤，49打數敲出15安（2支二壘安打、0轟），打擊三圍.306/.347/.417、攻擊指數0.764。

☆飲酒過量 有害健康 禁止酒駕☆

title: 棒球》前獅隊內野大物在中國「二刀流」飆K！曹錦輝0登板結束例行賽 - 自由體育


content_text: 台灣台中市豐原區豐康牧場上千隻蛋雞日前離奇死亡，市長盧秀燕周三（28日）公布，檢驗結果證實雞隻感染禽流感，已成立前進指揮所，追蹤、下架及銷毀流出雞蛋。該牧場周二（27日）提及，消費者周五（30日）起可辦理全額退款手續。當接報後，台中市農業局派員前往現場稽查。市農業局局長李逸安證實現場雞隻出現健康異常症狀，稽查人員已完成採樣並送中央單位檢驗。盧秀燕表示，將全面撲殺場內超過7,000隻蛋雞，亦會管制人車，也會全面查檢全市171個養雞場。在證實蛋雞染疫前，豐康牧場承認部分雞隻健康狀況近日在場內例行性檢測中出現異常，縱使檢驗結果仍未出爐，基於誠信經營及負責初衷，故決定採取最高防疫標準，顧客可憑產品盒子、交易紀錄等購買憑證辦理全額退款。

events: 禽流感 死亡

title: 台中蛋雞場證爆禽流感 東主承諾退款


content_text: 舉例來說，假設有一個人整天挨餓，另一人則是在飯店自助餐盡情吃喝，這時對他們來說，即使同一塊麵包擺在眼前，代表的意義也完全不同，這是因為在有錢人和一般人的人眼中，金錢與時間的意義完全不同。再舉一個例子，假設在大家都休息的星期天，有人從首爾搭飛機至濟州島一天來回，只為了送一箱蘋果並賺取20萬元。對於日收入約10萬元的人來說，能用一天的時間獲取原應耗兩天才可得的工資，很可能覺得非常值得，甚至認為自己「賺」到了一天。但對日收入約100萬元的人來說，他很可能反問自己：「用寶貴的一天換取區區20萬元值得嗎？」這樣的想法差異正好驗證：「即使時間相同，其經濟價值也會隨著金錢實力高低而有所不同。」然而，這時很容易出現「有錢人的時間比貧窮的人的時間更有價值」的想法，而且在這樣的狀況中很容易出現思維和行為偏差，例如：認為「時間有限，不該只是工作」。時間的價值是相對的，如果以金錢換算的話，貧窮的人的時間反而可能比有錢人的更珍貴。但若非以金錢換算，單純評估休息或旅行等時間本身的價值，兩類人的時間價值感則沒什麼差別。然而若認為「反正這段時間也賺不了多少錢，還不如去玩樂更好」，可能就會浪費將時間轉換為金錢的機會。會導致這樣的狀況是因為許多人只聽過「有錢人重視時間勝過金錢」，於是認為自己也可以比照辦理，從而陷入錯誤的模仿與判斷。 廣告 基本上有錢人已經擁有龐大的財富，會認為時間有限且不夠，所以更具價值，這是非常合理的思維；同理，貧窮的人若能善用時間不浪費，將其變成金錢，也是很明智、務實的選擇。對只有100萬元的人來說，如果用24小時就能賺到20萬元，等於是賺到自己總資產20％的錢，是非常珍貴的事。但對擁有100億的富豪來說，利用24小時賺20萬元可能不值得，還不如去旅行、閱讀、和家人一起休息會更好。如果真的認為時間比金錢更重要，那麼就應該盡快創造出一個「不再需要把金錢擺在時間之上」的生活狀態。因為用來賺錢的時間，和用來休息或享受的時間，本質上的價值是完全不同的。至於「金錢與時間哪個更重要？」這個看似愚蠢的問題，我能給出的最誠實回答是：「因為我已經擁有龐大的財富了⋯⋯」結論時間比金錢更重要的這句話，僅適用於金錢比時間更多的人。 廣告 （本文摘自幸福文化《把時間變財富》）

dateline: 瀏覽數：99+

journalist: 書摘精選

title: 時間比金錢哪個重要？他從負債到成為百億富翁，給出令人意想不到的答案


content_text: 大同位於中山北路的台北總部裡，一棟80年前蓋成、名列國家文化資產的三層紅磚建築，跟周遭工業廠房形成強烈對比。這棟紅磚房叫「志生樓」，是2009年大同為紀念創辦人林尚志與其子林挺生而命名。志生樓。（劉光瑩攝）「這些被歷史包袱掩蓋的資產，就像等待拋光的鑽石，」去年，隨5年來第3位董事長張榮華入主，在大同資產副董事長左昭德眼中，這正是大同的真正價值所在，「值得我用未來20年努力經營，」他說。左昭德與大同近4年第6任總經理張松鑌，一人管土地資產活化，一人管重電事業，都是張榮華禮聘的專業人士。【小檔案】大同公司成立／1918年創辦人／林尚志董事長／張榮華成績單／2025年營收503.74億元

journalist: 劉光瑩

taiwan-subdivisions: 大同 中山

title: 大同從廢墟中醒來 獨家專訪張榮華雙臂：重電老將、地產專家能把祖產變鑽石？