title: 兒童探索館爛尾官司大逆轉 林智堅前朝市府埋雷 高虹安討回逾一億

people: 林智堅 高虹安 李婉如

content_text:
墨新聞｜新聞策劃編輯部

記者李婉如／綜合報導

［專欄評論］新竹市兒童探索館爭議延燒多年，如今一紙判決，讓這起原本被包裝成城市親子亮點的建設案，再度成為政壇攻防焦點。新竹地方法院近日判決，承攬兒童探索館整修統包工程的立城營造，應給付新竹市政府102,181,467元。這座林智堅前朝市府任內啟動、主打科普教育與親子共融的場館，從當年的夢想基地，一路走到工程停擺、合約終止、法院判賠，政治殺傷力不言可喻。

法院拆開爛尾時間線

判決內容揭露，兒童探索館工程原定於110年12月22日完工，但當天實際進度僅62.41％。更尷尬的是，直到111年6月13日，估驗進度也只有63.43％，將近半年只增加1.02％。法院認定工程逾期266日，且情節重大，新竹市政府終止契約有據。

這段時間線，等於把多年來的政治口水拉回冷冰冰的工程數字。當年林智堅市府高舉城市美學、科學教育與兒童探索願景，替這座場館鋪上漂亮敘事；但判決書呈現的，卻是進度落後、履約爭議與市府求償。政治人物最愛講夢想，法院最終看的卻是契約、進度與責任。

高虹安接手爛攤

高虹安市府上任後，面對的不是一座可以直接開幕剪綵的親子場館，而是一個必須重新盤點、檢測、修正與求償的工程殘局。市府後續將原兒童探索館轉型為科學教育館，也被綠營與側翼多次質疑延宕責任。

但這次判決出爐後，攻防風向出現明顯變化。法院判立城營造應給付新竹市府102,181,467元，讓高虹安市府在政治上取得反擊支點。過去外界質疑高虹安「卡關」兒童探索館，如今市府可反問，真正該被追究的，是接手善後的人，還是當年把夢想工程推上軌道卻留下爛尾結果的前朝市府。

營造商判賠到脫褲

這起判決最具爆炸性的地方，不只是金額達100,000,000，而是它把兒童探索館從市政願景變成責任清算現場。法院認定，新竹市府請求返還溢付工程款、逾期違約金、減價收受違約金及衍生損害，扣除履約保證金後，合計102,181,467元請求有理由。

換言之，這不再只是藍綠白互打的政治口水，而是法院用判決替工程爭議定錨。立城營造這回可說是判賠到脫褲，而林智堅前朝市府當年留下的兒童探索館，也從城市行銷樣板變成新竹公共工程管理的反面教材。

政治帳才剛開始算

新竹市政近年風波不斷，從棒球場到兒童探索館，公共工程屢屢成為政治戰場。兒童探索館判決出爐後，高虹安市府手上多了一份法院背書的攻防武器，林智堅前朝市府則勢必再被檢視當年決策、監督與履約管理是否到位。

這場風暴最難看的，不只是營造商被判給付100,000,000，而是原本屬於孩子的探索空間，最後變成大人們互相清算的政治廢墟。林智堅前朝市府當年負責築夢，高虹安市府如今負責拆雷；兒童探索館這本帳，法院先算了一筆，但政治責任恐怕還沒結束。

照片：新竹市政府提供

此篇文章最開始出處為: 兒童探索館爛尾官司大逆轉 林智堅前朝市府埋雷 高虹安討回逾一億


taiwan-subdivisions: 太平 東沙

title: Taiwan holding off PRC at sea: officials

content_text:
‘BRAZEN’:  The holiday did not stop China from activities that infringe on Taiwan’s maritime jurisdiction, but the CGA is ready to defend the nation, Kuan Bi-ling said

Beijing is intensifying maritime pressure on Taiwan, but the nation will never yield, Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Sung Chen-en (宋承恩) said.

The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has adopted a “shadowing and monitoring” approach to avoid falling into a Chinese trap to escalate tensions and deepen the conflict, Sung said in an interview published yesterday in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).

China Coast Guard formations patrolling waters east of Taiwan, as well as official Chinese vessels entering areas around Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) show Beijing’s attempts to significantly step up pressure at sea, Sung said.

A Coast Guard Administration (CGA) member monitors a China Coast Guard ship near Pratas Island in the South China Sea yesterday. Photo courtesy of the CGA

He cited incidents on May 7 and 14 in which the Chinese research vessel Tongji (同濟號) circled Taiwan along the boundary of its restricted waters, repeatedly deploying monitoring equipment during the voyage.

This month, a joint operation involving a scientific vessel and a coast guard ship were also seen around the waters in Pratas for the first time, he said.

The vessels made sudden course changes after sailing in a straight line and entered Taiwan’s prohibited waters, Sung said, describing it as unprofessional and risky behavior.

China’s recent actions across multiple areas around Taiwan represent an escalation in provocations and show a greater disregard for Taiwan’s enforcement authority than in the past, he said.

In response to the mounting pressure, the CGA has adopted a “shadowing and monitoring” strategy, Sung said, adding that while the nature of maritime operations makes it impossible to prevent Chinese vessels from approaching, the goal is to ensure they do not enter Taiwan’s jurisdictional waters.

For every vessel deployed by China, Taiwan dispatches a corresponding number of patrol ships to track and monitor them on a rotating basis, he said.

The strategy is designed to deny Chinese vessels access to Taiwan-controlled waters while avoiding the use of force, thereby preventing Beijing from gaining a pretext to further escalate tensions, he said.

Legal rights are based on legitimate authority, he said.

Admiring a luxury home and walking around it every day for 10 years will not make it your own, he said as an analogy.

The People’s Republic of China has never exercised sovereignty over Taiwan and therefore has no jurisdiction over waters east of Taiwan, Sung said.

Chinese vessels might circle the area, but they ultimately leave nothing behind, and the CGA will continue monitoring them until they depart, he said.

“Tonnage is not everything; professionalism matters more,” he said, adding that the CGA has the resolve and capability to enforce the law peacefully and prevent unlawful incursions.

Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), meanwhile, described China as “brazen” in a social media post yesterday.

Yesterday was the start of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, but that did not stop China from continuing with its activities that infringe on Taiwan’s maritime jurisdiction, including “three noes” — no name, no registration, no flag — ships crossing the line and dumping mixed catch, she wrote.

The Chinese research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 was spotted entering restricted waters off Yilan County, and Chinese coast guard vessels have been operating in the Pratas area, she said.

Kuan attached a map showing the CGA vessel Tainan operating in waters around Pratas Island, tracking and pushing back against approaching Chinese coast guard ships.

The CGA continued to uphold “civilized values that transcend borders and distinctions between friend and foe,” while also carrying out its duty to defend sovereignty and protect fishing rights during the holiday, she said.


content_text:
HAN KUANG EXERCISE:  Military preparedness and joint defense exercises are to be held prior to live-fire exercises in August to test closer civil-military integration

Taiwan is to launch next week a series of combat-readiness drills ahead of major exercises testing the military’s readiness and whole-of-society resilience, sources said yesterday.

Summer and autumn are typically the peak seasons for Taiwan’s annual military exercises.

While the Han Kuang exercises are well-known to the public, the Ministry of National Defense has over the years introduced major reforms to better reflect modern battlefield conditions and improve training effectiveness, including removing designated opposing force scenarios and extending the exercise to 10 days and nine nights.

Taiwan’s Patriot air defense system deployed at a park as part of the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taipei on July 15 last year.  Photo: Taipei times

To ensure smoother execution, the ministry in February announced a significant overhaul of its annual training schedule.

Sources confirmed yesterday that the military would first conduct a five-day “immediate combat readiness drill” starting on Monday.

This is to be followed by a one-week “joint defense exercise” on July 13 designed as a prelude to the Han Kuang, they said.

The main event, Han Kuang Exercise No. 42, is scheduled to begin on Aug. 5, they said, adding that it would run alongside civil defense urban resilience drills and reserve mobilization exercises, testing whole-of-society defense resilience through closer civil-military integration.

For the joint defense exercise, the defense ministry has said that it would be based on the military’s existing joint operations plans and involve the deployment of troops for live, dynamic drills.

The exercise is designed to test coordination between supporting and supported units across the army, navy and air force, focusing on how different forces work together throughout the course of an operation, with scenarios carried out in relevant operational areas, sources said.

Analysts have described the exercise as a warm-up for the Han Kuang No. 42 live-fire drill in August.

Sources said that in response to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) growing use of aircraft and naval deployments, alongside joint drills with the China Coast Guard and other “gray zone” tactics designed to blur the line between peacetime and wartime, the military has revised its joint operational planning.

The previous three-stage structure has been streamlined into a two-phase framework: a routine combat readiness period and a defense operations period, they said.

Under the combat readiness phase, the military has introduced new alert levels, including combat preparation deployment, second-level enhanced readiness and first-level heightened alert, they said.

In the defense operations phase, the revised plan outlines joint counter-landing and coastal strike operations, beachhead combat, and deep defense and sustained operations.

The changes are intended to better prepare for PLA scenarios such as “transitioning from training to exercises” and “from exercises to combat,” the sources said.

title: Combat readiness drills to start next week


content_text:
US, Iran postpone talks as fighting flares in Lebanon

Deadly exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon put a newly signed deal to end the Middle East war under further strain yesterday, after the postponement of planned US-Iran talks in Switzerland.

The delay came as Tehran’s top negotiator warned it would not bend on its red lines and that its finger was still “on the trigger,” even as shipping appeared to pick up in the Strait of Hormuz.

The deal signed this week by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian aims to end a war that began on Feb. 28 with US-Israeli strikes that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A resident walks past the rubble of buildings damaged in Israeli strikes as barber Wissam Srour, right, searches for belongings from his barbershop in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, yesterday. Photo: AP

The agreement was also meant to halt the fighting in Lebanon, which Iran has always insisted should be covered under any accord, turning Israel’s ongoing campaign there into a source of frustration for Washington.

The Israeli military yesterday said that it had struck more than 80 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and killed dozens of members of the Iran-backed group in response to what it described as ceasefire violations.

Lebanon said 18 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the south, while Israel’s military reported four troops were killed, drawing furious reactions at home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli army would stay in Lebanon “as long as necessary” and would make Hezbollah pay a “heavy price” for its attacks.

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir said after the soldiers’ deaths that “all of Lebanon must burn.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, who presided over Trump’s signing of the deal in Versailles, urged Israel to “respect” the accord, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot said.

Preparations had been made to host Iranian and US delegations led by Tehran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and US Vice President J.D. Vance at the Swiss resort of Burgenstock, overlooking Lake Lucerne.

The talks were due to begin on a two-month period of negotiations to discuss outstanding issues not covered by the initial deal, notably Iran’s nuclear program.

The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the discussions had been postponed, but said it “remains ready to facilitate these talks.”

Quoting diplomats, the Financial Times said Israel’s strikes on Lebanon had led to the postponement, but there was no immediate confirmation.

A diplomatic source from the United Arab Emirates said there were “two spoilers” to the deal — namely that Israel “didn’t like it” and that there was also hardline opposition within Iran.

Ghalibaf said that talks with the US would remain bound by Tehran’s “red lines.”

“If the enemy seeks to be excessive, we have proven that our fingers are on the trigger and we have no hesitation in giving a crushing response to the enemy,” he said in remarks published by the official IRNA news agency.

Vance, meanwhile, has expressed a degree of exasperation with the Israeli government rare for a top US official, telling the New York Times “you can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”


title: EU to develop new tools to tackle China export flood

content_text:
EU leaders agreed during talks on Thursday that the bloc must develop beefed-up trade defenses to curb a surge of Chinese exports deemed an existential threat to European industry by Brussels — while simultaneously seeking “constructive dialogue” with Beijing.

There is a growing consensus in the EU that it is too dependent on China, and Brussels fears this makes it vulnerable to potential coercion and supply shocks. The 27-nation bloc’s trade deficit in goods hit about 360 billion euros (US$413 billion) last year.

During a two-hour summit dinner in Brussels, leaders chewed over how the EU could address the imbalance, and whether the bloc needed to boost its arsenal.

French President Emmanuel Macron, sixth right, speaks with EU leaders prior to a round-table meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels yesterday.  Photo: AFP

After talks ended early yesterday, an EU official said the leaders tasked the European Commission with continuing to engage “in a constructive dialogue with our main economic partners,” but did not directly say China.

They also asked the executive “to develop and eventually complement the toolbox in the area of trade defence” and to make sure the EU has “all the instruments it needs to defend its interests and derisk,” the official said.

While EU capitals agree on a common diagnosis, the positions differ on the cure and several leaders on Thursday had called for dialogue as a priority.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez struck a more conciliatory tone than his counterparts before the dinner.

“We need friends, we need balanced relationships, we need to be pragmatic, and we need to build bridges both with major economies and potential allies, such as China,” Sanchez told reporters.

One way to beef up the EU’s arsenal could be creating a new tool to impose sector-specific tariffs such as chemicals or green tech — taking a page out of US President Donald Trump’s playbook.

French President Emmanuel Macron last month called for a “European equivalent of Section 301” — the trade tool Trump has employed to set sweeping tariffs — saying that Europe’s “sovereignty is at stake.”

Germany has until now adopted a cautious posture because its economy is more exposed to potential retaliation, while Spain has sought to avoid tensions as it chases Chinese investment.

However, Berlin appeared to be coming around to France’s way of thinking.

A German official said Berlin was “open” to new tools if they are necessary so long as they were “not targeted at specific recipients.”

However, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz would not be drawn on China by reporters in Brussels.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said before the dinner he wanted to see “the shape and nature of any mechanisms” introduced but warned Europe had to make sure it understood the consequences.

The EU official did not comment on what any new tools would look like.

Concern about Chinese dominance is not limited to the EU.

Fears are rising in the West over Beijing’s control in the market for rare earth minerals used in everyday electronic appliances, and China was on the agenda of G7 talks in France this week.

Brussels often evokes the need for fair competition, pointing to the unfair advantage Chinese companies have because of massive state subsidies.

Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received about three to eight times more government support than firms in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the OECD, which called it “a conservative estimate”.

Even as its resolve appears to be hardening, the EU has shown no appetite to trigger a broader trade war with China.

Fears over Chinese retaliation are not unfounded.

After the EU hit Chinese electric vehicles with higher tariffs in 2024, China imposed anti-dumping duties on European cognac.

Moreover, Beijing has vowed to hit back if the EU pushes through rules that would exclude certain products manufactured outside the bloc from public contracts.

European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic has invited Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤) to Brussels later this month as the bloc still hopes it can prevent escalation through dialogue with China — but an EU official would not confirm the visit.


title: Burnham looks ready to challenge Starmer for PM

content_text:
The UK Labour Party’s Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, won a special election for a seat in Parliament and yesterday signaled that he would use it to challenge embattled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the nation.

Burnham decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwest England over Rob Kenyon of the anti-immigration party Reform UK, and called the victory a chance for Britain “to turn the tide.”

The result cements the status of Burnham, a 56-year-old politician nicknamed the “King of the North,” as the top contender to replace Starmer as leader of the Labour Party and the nation. Burnham won almost 55 percent of the 45,510 votes cast for a field of more than a dozen candidates, more than 9,000 more than runner-up Kenyon.

Greater Manchester Mayor and newly elected Makerfield MP Andy Burnham addresses members and supporters of the Labour Party after he won the Makerfield by-election, at the Bartons Group Stadium in Ashton-in-Makerfield, England, yesterday. Photo: AP

Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that he wants to lead the nation, and not just be one of the more than 400 Labour MPs in the 650-seat House of Commons.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”

Starmer congratulated Burnham, writing on X that voters “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”

However, the prime minister insisted he would fight any attempt to oust him.

“Yes, I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

Burnham has led Manchester since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged. He is pledging to repeat his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.

Burnham said he would work to ensure that “the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs.”

He told supporters and campaign workers yesterday that voters’ rejection of Labour in local elections last month was “a clear call for change” and “we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.”

“We need an economy that works for everybody, not a few in far-off places from here,” he said.

“We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it’s working again, to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again,” he said.

Burnham is to head to London to be sworn in as a lawmaker as soon as Monday. He is likely to seek a meeting with Starmer to argue that the prime minister should exit gracefully and set a timetable for his departure.

Labour MP Louise Haigh, a Burnham ally, said Starmer should “do what’s best for both the country and the Labour Party,” and “consider an orderly and managed transition.”

“Andy won’t be doing anything rash or hasty,” she told Sky News. “I’m really hopeful the prime minister and Andy can come to an agreement.”


title: Taiwan needs US arms as China threat grows: envoy

people: 習近平 賴清德

content_text:
STILL STEADY:  Representative to the US Alexander Yui expressed confidence in Taiwan-US relations, saying that it is important to look at actions, not just rhetoric

Taiwan needs to purchase US weapons to ensure its self-defense in the face of a growing threat from Beijing, Representative to the US Alexander Yui said.

A US$14 billion arms sale package to Taiwan is still in limbo after US President Donald Trump returned from Beijing last month and said he had discussed the proposal “in great detail” with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), heightening anxieties in Taiwan and raising concerns among lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“We need those arms for defensive purposes,” Yui, who heads the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, told the Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday in Washington. “We’re trying to increase our defense expenditure. We try to increase our ability to defend ourselves better and survive times of crisis.”

Representative to the US Alexander Yui speaks during an interview at the Twin Oaks Estate in Washington on Wednesday. Photo: AP

The Trump administration has not moved forward with the US$14 billion weapons sale proposal approved by senior lawmakers earlier this year. Trump has described the sale as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Washington is obligated by domestic law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter aggression from China.

Taiwan is aware that it must defend its territory, Yui said.

“This is our responsibility, so we will not wait and depend for the US cavalry to come and save us,” he said. “That’s why we’re willing to acquire, to buy US equipment and arms to make ourselves stronger.”

The weapons sales need to be “commensurate” to the threat level, which is “actually pretty high” from China, Yui said.

“First and foremost, we’re not the aggressors. It is the People’s Republic of China who is sending all the planes and ships,” he said. “They’re the ones huffing and puffing. They are the ones who’s trying to annihilate our freedom and democracy in Taiwan.”

China sends warships and military aircraft near Taiwan almost daily and has conducted major military exercises around the nation over the past few years.

There had been no changes to the US’ position on Taiwan and the Taiwanese government will respect the Trump administration’s “tempo” in making announcements, Yui said.

The arms sale has broad support in the US Congress, with lawmakers raising concerns to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a hearing this month.

Rubio affirmed that US policy on Taiwan has not changed and that Washington does not “consult with the Chinese on these arms deals.”

The proposal was not held up, but under review, he said, adding that the administration had other factors to weigh.

“It includes the availability of the stocks in the short term,” Rubio said of US weapons stockpiles, which have been drawn down during the Iran war. “We have to balance that with our own procurement process.”

The administration approved a separate US$11 billion arms sale package to Taiwan in December last year that included High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and howitzers.

As much as Trump has raised eyebrows by ignoring a promise from the era of former US president Ronald Reagan not to consult with Beijing on arms sales to Taipei, he also said he could call President William Lai (賴清德), which would break a decades-long practice that no sitting US president has directly spoken with the leader of the nation.

In its national defense strategy published in January, the Pentagon said it seeks to deter China through strength, not confrontation.

The US “will build, posture, and sustain a strong denial defense” along a strategic line of islands, including Taiwan, to keep China out of the wider Pacific Ocean, it said.

Yui ascribed what appears to be mixed messages to Trump’s outside-of-the-box style, but expressed confidence in Taiwan-US relations.

“It’s important to look at the actions, what is happening, not just the rhetoric,” Yui said. “The big stick is still there.”


title: CGA drives away Chinese research vessel

taiwan-subdivisions: 蘭嶼 蘇澳

content_text:
EXCUSES: Beijing is using government and research vessels as a pretext to harass the nation and enter its EEZ, and engage in ‘hegemonic expansion,’ the coast guard said

The Coast Guard Administration yesterday said it drove away Chinese oceanographic research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 (向陽紅33) from restricted waters after warning it that it was in Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The Chinese vessel entered restricted waters off the coast of Yilan County’s Suao (蘇澳) at 11:35pm on Thursday, the coast guard said, adding that it dispatched the Lanyu patrol vessel and the boat PP-10077 to shadow the Chinese ship and issue radio warnings ordering it to leave.

China has no sovereignty over waters off Taiwan’s east coast, Lanyu’s crew told Xiang Yang Hong 22 over the radio, and demanded that the vessel depart immediately.

Chinese oceanographic research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 sails in restricted waters northeast of Yilan County’s Suao on Thursday. Photo copied by Cheng Ching-yi, Taipei Time

The two Taiwanese vessels then flanked the Chinese ship, and carried out maneuvers designed to generate waves and disrupt the latter’s operations, the coast guard said.

At 4:20am yesterday, Xiang Yang Hong 22 left Taiwan’s restricted waters and continued north, it said, adding that it reached 35 nautical miles northeast of Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼) before it moved beyond the range of the Lanyu’s radar system.

The Lanyu initially spotted Xiang Yang Hong 22 41 nautical miles east of Hualien at 8pm on Thursday, the coast guard said.

Warnings to leave Taiwan’s EEZ were issued, and the research vessel left, heading north at a speed of 15 knots before entering restricted waters off Suao, it added.

China’s Xinhua News Agency said Xiang Yang Hong 22 was conducting a maritime ecological survey in waters east of Taiwan.

Beijing is using government and research vessels to navigate in Taiwan’s EEZ “as a pretext to engage in hegemonic expansion,” the coast guard said.

“Our country has sovereign rights and jurisdiction in its eastern exclusive economic zone, and China’s attempts to harass Taiwan through maritime navigation or scientific research cannot change this indisputable fact,” it added.

The Xiang Yang Hong 22 had been operating in waters off Taiwan’s east and southern coast for more than a week, it said.

The ship left Zhoushan in China’s Zhejiang Province on Wednesday last week and transited waters 52 nautical miles east of Japan’s Miyako Island the following day, the coast guard added.

From Friday last week to Monday, Xiang Yang Hong 22 sailed to an area 448 nautical miles east-southeast of Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), then returned north and began operating between Yonaguni Island and Taiwan’s eastern coast EEZ, the agency said.

The CGA said it would continue monitoring the vessel’s movements.


content_text:
By Fang Wei-li and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Chinese coast guard and scientific research vessels entering Taiwan’s restricted waters signaled Beijing’s shift toward hybrid warfare, which is increasing pressure on the nation’s maritime enforcement agencies, Taiwan National Security Institute deputy secretary-general Ho Cheng-hui (何澄輝) said.

With conflicts in Ukraine and Iran easing, China appears to think its prospects for a successful military confrontation are diminishing, prompting greater reliance on “gray zone” tactics, Ho said.

These include sovereignty assertions and displays of force, coupled with propaganda-driven cognitive warfare, aimed at applying political and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, among other regional neighbors, he added.

A Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol vessel, left, heads off a China Coast Guard vessel near Kinmen County in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the CGA

China is weaponizing sovereignty disputes and legal instruments to exploit loopholes in international law and push the boundaries of acceptable behavior, Ho said.

Exclusive economic zones (EEZs), the Taiwan Strait’s median line, and restricted waters surrounding Kinmen and Matsu would become focal points of Chinese activity, he added.

China has increasingly relied on its coast guard to exert pressure, regularly operating close to or across contested waters and generating legal ambiguity, Ho said.

Taiwan’s government must react promptly and decisively to Beijing’s strategic shift, he said.

The Philippines’ informational warfare strategy of absolute transparency, or publicizing every act of Chinese transgression, has proved remarkably effective in countering disinformation spread by Beijing, Ho said.

Taiwan could have responded to China’s false reports about its forces taking over the nation’s outlying atolls and islets by live streaming Coast Guard Administration patrols around such territories, which would have exposed the lie of China’s “phantom” war fleets, he added.

The government should promote joint maritime law enforcement operations and intelligence sharing with Japan and the Philippines, as well as settle differences in demarcating EEZs diplomatically, Ho said.

Taipei could work with Tokyo and Manila in negotiating cooperative fishing and resource extraction pacts, he said.

Some people in Taiwan have interpreted Japan and the Philippines’ discussion of their EEZs as a national humiliation and loss of sovereignty, Ho said.

That narrative is a distortion of facts, as EEZs are not synonymous with sovereign waters, he said, adding that it is normal for countries to engage in diplomatic dialogue to handle disputes over fishing rights.

Taiwan should show its willingness to take part in the negotiations, rather than hurling insults from the sidelines, Ho said.

“To think that even negotiating with others is a debasement of Taiwanese sovereignty is a logic that only benefits China,” he added.

Taiwan should welcome opportunities to resolve disputes with other countries on the First Island Chain through diplomacy to build a strong defensive alliance against China, Ho said.

The time has come for the nation to put aside trivial disputes and invalid territorial claims based on the long-discredited “nine-dash line,” and engage in pragmatic discourse with its neighbors, he said.

Enhancing cooperation with allies in joint maritime law enforcement and information transparency would prove crucial in protecting Taiwan’s national security amid China’s escalating hybrid warfare, he added.

title: Expert warns of China’s escalating hybrid warfare


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Taiwan detains Chinese fishing crew in restricted Penghu waters

The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has detained six crew members from an unnamed Chinese fishing vessel caught operating in restricted waters off a Penghu Islands islet, an official said yesterday, adding that the group is being held while an investigation is ongoing.

The Chinese vessel was spotted operating 23.7 nautical miles west of Huayu (花嶼)-- the westernmost islet the Penghu archipelago -- at 7:23 pm Thursday, the CGA said yesterday.

The Penghu Coast Guard fleet issued five radio and siren warnings to the fishing vessel, but the ship refused to stop for inspection and attempted to evade the authorities, prompting CGA personnel to deploy a smaller boat to chase it, the coast guard said in a news release.

A Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol vessel intercepts an unnamed Chinese fishing vessel in restricted waters off an islet in the Penghu Islands on Thursday night. Photo courtesy of the CGA

CGA personnel intercepted and boarded the targeted vessel at 8:15 pm in waters 31 nautical miles west of Huayu, where they discovered six crew members and seized 750 kilograms of illegally caught fish, which were then dumped into the sea under Taiwanese law, it added.

Chen Fu-jung (陳富榮), spokesman for the Penghu- based CGA 8th Fleet, said the crew members were transferred to a Magong Harbor detention center.

The men face a CGA investigation under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), Chen added.

According to Chen, the incident marked the second time this year a Chinese fishing ship has been intercepted while trespassing and fishing in Taiwanese waters, following a similar incident in waters southwest of Penghu’s Cimei Island (七美島) in April.

Meanwhile, the CGA noted that the Chinese Coast Guard ship, Haijing 2102, appeared west of Penghu during its enforcement operation, ostensibly conducting a patrol. In response, the CGA deployed the frigate Lienchiang to track and monitor the Chinese vessel’s movements.


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KMT would fight back should Beijing attack, Cheng says

Although the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seeks peace, it would not give up Taiwan’s right to self-defense and would fight back if China attacked it despite the nation not formally declaring independence, KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said.

Cheng made the comment during an interview with The Economist on Wednesday, which was released by the KMT’s Culture and Communications Committee yesterday.

Taiwan should not become a bargaining chip in a great-power competition, she said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Taipei Times

Instead, the nation should deepen cooperation with the US and the international community while reducing the risk of conflict through dialogue to help maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region, she added.

The KMT opposes a formal declaration of Taiwanese independence, Cheng said, adding that it is a position that aligns with that of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

However, if Taiwan refrained from making such a declaration and China still chose to invade by force, “we will fight back,” she said.

The KMT could soon propose legislation to support Taiwan’s domestic drone manufacturing program and other measures to bolster the nation’s defense industry, Cheng said, but added that the bill was unlikely to pass the legislature before Xi’s planned visit to the US in September.

The remarks drew criticism from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, with Legislator Chen Pei-yu (陳培瑜) saying Taiwan’s defense self-reliance is not a concession from Xi, nor should the nation hinge decisions to defend itself on shifts in US-China relations.

DPP Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) questioned why major bills aimed at bolstering Taiwan’s domestic defense must repeatedly take cues from Xi’s position, and said it suggested that the KMT is reluctant to anger Beijing.

Additional reporting by Hsu Yung-ching

people: 鄭麗文 陳培瑜 鍾佳濱 習近平


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The army would soon deploy a drone battalion on Penghu County, which would significantly bolster its early warning capabilities in the event of an enemy attack, a military source with knowledge of the matter said.

The move would expand the area covered by Taiwan’s early warning mechanisms, and allow the military to conduct anti-blockade operations closer to the enemy and swiftly deploy kill chains using drones and anti-ship missiles, the source told local media on Thursday.

The drone battalion would be established in Penghu County and upgraded from an existing squadron there, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported, adding that the battalion in Penghu would likely be launched next month under the army’s Penghu Defense Command in Magong (馬公).

An Altius-600M drone is launched during a drill conducted by the army’s 6th Corps in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the Military News Agency

Army Chief of Staff Chen Chun-yi (陳俊義) told legislators in October last year that the army would establish a drone battalion in each of Taiwan’s five theaters of operations to defend northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan, as well as offshore Penghu County.

The army in April established three drone battalions in the nation’s northern, southern and central regions.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s Defense Strategy and Resources Division, described the deployment of drones on the country's offshore islands as strategically significant.

The move will leverage the strengths of drones, namely their long-range reconnaissance and beyond-visual-range striking capabilities, significantly strengthening Taiwan's defense posture and anti-landing efforts, Su said.

title: Army to deploy drone battalion in Penghu County: source


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INCREASED RISK:  People seeking weight loss treatment should go through the proper medical channels and refrain from buying products from unknown sources, the FDA said

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday said it is considering tighter border controls on GLP-1 weight loss drugs amid illegal imports from China and online platforms.

GLP-1 drugs, commonly known as “weight loss injections,” have fueled a surge in demand for weight loss treatments in the past few years alongside a rise in overseas purchasing, online sales and illegal imports.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) on Thursday said that searching for “weight loss injections” on platforms such as Facebook and Threads returns a large number of listings, some of which promote products sourced from China.

The injections are not suitable for everyone and might cause side effects including gastrointestinal discomfort, she said.

Products bought through illegal channels cannot be verified for authenticity and offer no consumer protection, she added, urging the Ministry of Health and Welfare to strengthen oversight.

FDA Deputy Director-General Wang Der-yuan (王德原) said yesterday that illegal sources of “weight loss injections” come through two main channels: travelers bringing the drugs into Taiwan themselves, and purchases made through online mail-order services.

Some products that enter the country are later resold on online platforms, further fueling illegal sales.

On the issue of online sales, Wang said the FDA has proposed amendments to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act (藥事法) to hold online platforms more accountable.

Under the proposed changes, platforms found to be hosting illegal drug sales would be required to remove the listings within a specified timeframe and provide seller information to authorities for investigation, he said.

The FDA has also established cooperation mechanisms with the Ministry of Digital Affairs and platforms such as Line, allowing authorities to launch takedown procedures once illegal content is confirmed, he said.

Regarding travelers bringing weight loss injections into Taiwan, Wang said regulations require anyone carrying injectable medications into the country to have a prescription or documentation. The amount carried must be limited to a reasonable personal supply which does not exceed six months.

Wang acknowledged that authorities have no way of tracking what travelers bring into the country if the items are not inspected.

The FDA is working with the Customs Administration to assess whether GLP-1 drugs should be added to arrival declaration requirements or made subject to mandatory declaration, he said, adding that if implemented, travelers who fail to declare such products could face penalties.

The FDA also warned the public against selling personal prescription medicines online, he said.

Under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, people who sell pharmaceuticals without a license face fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$2 million (US$950 to US$63,315).

If the offence involves unapproved imported drugs, penalties can include up to seven years in prison and fines of up to NT$50 million.

The FDA urged people seeking weight-loss treatment to go through proper medical channels by consulting a doctor and using prescription drugs only under medical supervision, warning that purchasing products from unknown sources poses safety risks.

title: FDA mulls weight loss drug controls


companies: Apple 台積電

title: US claims China has ASML tool

content_text:
RESTRICTION BREACH:  ASML said that it denies ‘unfounded rumors regarding non-compliance with export controls concerning China,’ and enforces controls strictly

US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a series of recent meetings outlined concerns to Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML Holding NV’s senior leaders that one of its top-of-the-line machines might have made its way into China, in violation of US-led export restrictions.

In the meetings, Lutnick expressed concern to ASML executives over the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, people familiar with the talks said.

EUV systems are used by firms such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to manufacture processors for the likes of Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc.

ASML chief executive officer Christophe Fouquet speaks at the Imec Technology Forum in Antwerp, Belgium, on May 19. Photo: Reuters

ASML has never been allowed to ship them to China because of curbs imposed during the first administration of US President Donald Trump.

ASML has pushed back on Lutnick’s suggestion, saying that none of the tools — which are the size of a school bus, are manufactured in limited quantities and they require constant upkeep from ASML employees — are in China, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Asked about the meetings, a company spokesperson said that ASML talks with all governments and that it has never shipped an EUV machine to China.

The Commerce Department did not respond to multiple queries on the matter.

Multiple senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive matter, said they have evidence indicating that ASML is not acting in good faith — such as exports to China of gear specifically related to EUV tools, which ASML denied to Bloomberg.

The US officials, who did not comment on Lutnick’s meetings with ASML, declined multiple requests from Bloomberg for evidence of the shipments, citing the sensitivity of the information and sources.

They also declined to say whether they had seen evidence of an EUV system in China.

Persistent concerns from senior levels of the Trump administration — including a Cabinet official — add to pressure on Europe’s most valuable company, which has previously fielded allegations by US officials that its business activities undermine US national security and tech policies.

“ASML regularly engages in transparent and open dialogue with government leaders globally,” a company spokesperson said. “We recognize the national security considerations behind export control regulations in the US and the Netherlands, and we’re fully committed to complying with all applicable regulations.”

ASML has previously “refuted several unfounded rumors regarding non-compliance with export controls concerning China which were inaccurate and damaging to our reputation,” the spokesperson said.

A representative of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Netherlands takes seriously the responsibility that comes with its “unique role in the semiconductor industry.”

The country also enforces restrictions on EUV tools and other exports “very strictly” and “always intervenes where necessary,” the representative said.

China’s lack of access to EUV tools is perhaps the single toughest constraint faced by artificial intelligence (AI) chip champion Huawei Technologies Co (華為) — the Asian country’s top rival to Nvidia.

Huawei’s top semiconductor executive touted the company’s innovations in making chips without ASML’s EUV machines in a rare English-language public appearance.

If an EUV system did make it to China, that would be among the biggest known violations of US-led curbs designed to limit Beijing’s access to AI that could benefit its military.


title: Experts expect property market to stabilize

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RATES INFLUENCE: Liquidity is abundant, as reflected in a stock market rally, while a subsidy program for first-time homebuyers might help demand, a realtor said

Taiwan’s property market is likely to stabilize following the central bank’s decision on Thursday to leave interest rates and mortgage restrictions unchanged, a move market participants say signals that policymakers are comfortable with a gradual cooling, but are alert to potential financial risks.

Chinatrust Real Estate Co (中信房屋) deputy research manager Chuang Si-ming (莊思敏) said that speculative demand has largely been squeezed out after a series of credit-tightening measures, leaving owner-occupiers as the main support for the housing market.

Against this backdrop, the bank’s decision to maintain the policy stance suggests it is aiming for a soft landing while continuing to monitor market conditions closely, Chuang said.

Liquidity remains abundant, as reflected in the continued strength of Taiwan’s stock market rally, while the government’s planned subsidy program for first-time homebuyers set for next month could offer additional support to end-user demand, she said.

As a result, policymakers are expected to remain in wait-and-see mode through the central bank’s third-quarter board meeting as they assess whether housing transactions stay contained after the new measures take effect.

The Ministry of Finance is expected to unveil a new housing subsidy program at the end of this month, as the current scheme is to expire next month.

The central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged was broadly in line with expectations, with price-stabilization policies helping keep inflation contained.

Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) echoed the view that policymakers are adopting a cautious stance.

Although the housing market has slowed, there has been no meaningful price correction, underpinned by a resilient economy and sustained gains in equities, Evertrust Rehouse said.

Even as the US and Iran agree to a ceasefire, geopolitical uncertainty lingers, limiting the central bank’s willingness to signal a more aggressive policy direction, Evertrust Rehouse deputy research head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.

The central bank is concerned about capital concentration in property lending, which could crowd out credit for productive investment in the broader economy, Chen said.

Banks are expected to be conservative in extending property-related credit in the near term, she said.

At the same time, the housing market has benefited from a wealth effect, as some investors take profits from equities and redeploy funds into real estate, she said.

Looking ahead, genuine end-user demand is likely to re-emerge as buyers move away from expectations of further price declines driven by tighter credit conditions, analysts said.

H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said that the housing market is likely to consolidate in the second half of the year, with transactions remaining subdued and prices moving sideways within a narrow range.

H&B chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said that as long as credit controls remain in place, speculative demand will stay muted, with investors continuing to favor alternative assets such as equities.

End-user demand might gradually return as buyers move off the sidelines, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, adding that the central bank’s signal that it will not introduce additional credit controls could encourage transaction activity among genuine homebuyers.


title: Youth lacking institutional clout

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Taiwan is often praised for its politically engaged young voters, with one of the most cited youth protest movements being the Sunflower movement in 2014. Among Asian countries, Taiwanese are regarded as highly active politically and socially.

However, youth debates often occur outside the places where decisions are made, revealing a degree of institutional disconnect between the youth and policymakers.

Young Taiwanese discuss political affairs and issues online, mobilizing around causes and engaging in protests. Surveys have shown that young people consume high volumes of political information and news, but there have been signs of weakening trust in institutions and declining levels of identification with political parties during election periods.

This reveals disillusionment with institutions, where political awareness does not always translate into influence or change. The Sunflower movement marked “a radical change within Taiwan’s political democracy,” according to The Guardian, demonstrating youth capacity for mobilization. With turnout often exceeding 70 percent and 3.5 million eligible voters, young Taiwanese remain politically engaged, digitally active, and vocal.

However, a comparison of voter turnout by age revealed another trend: turnout among voters younger than 30 was 52.9 percent, compared with 73.6 percent among those older than 60.

The participation gap remains significant. Voting rates among the latest generation of independent voters were 10 percent to 20 percent lower than among older independents. Despite high political engagement, institutional participation has weakened and long-term engagement channels appear fragile.

In a comparative survey of young people in Taiwan and Indonesia, Taiwanese respondents showed high political awareness, but weaker alignment between political interest and sustained institutional participation. Youth engagement is often more visible, protest-oriented, issue-based and digitally connected, though this does not necessarily translate into influence.

Young people’s political engagement is increasingly disconnected from parties, electoral institutions and long-term formal participation, limiting the translation of visibility into power. Part of this stems from declining institutional trust.

In Taiwan, Public Opinion Foundation polls showed the share of respondents who viewed former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) prosecution as politically motivated rose from 28.6 percent to 41.7 percent in a year. The shift reflects growing distrust of the judiciary and skepticism toward institutions, reinforcing perceptions that political action produces little systemic change.

With declining institutional trust and perceived efficacy, young people often redirect political energy elsewhere.

If democratic participation remains detached from institutional power, legitimacy could erode over time. Young Taiwanese are not politically absent, but a widening gap persists between informal civic engagement and the institutions where decisions are made.

Young Taiwanese increasingly participate in spaces offering visibility and expression, along with limited institutional influence.

Democracy cannot rely solely on media expressions, as it also depends on how much faith they have in the idea that their agency can contribute to political outcomes.

Audrey Christabelle Amatri is a student in the Department of International Affairs at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages.


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On June 7, Hai Xun 06, a Chinese Maritime Safety Administration vessel operating with China Coast Guard ships east of Taiwan, radioed three passing merchant vessels — flagged in Singapore, Liberia and Benin — and asked for their ports of departure, destination and crew counts. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) broadcast back that the merchant vessels should pay no attention to Chinese inquiries, that the waters were not under Chinese jurisdiction and that the requests for information should stop. No ships were boarded. No inspections occurred. Bloomberg reported the operation as the first publicly known case of Chinese government vessels querying foreign commercial shipping in those waters.

Chinese state media announced the “special maritime traffic law-enforcement operation” a day earlier in response to an announcement last month that Japan and the Philippines would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries — talks Beijing characterized as touching on waters off Taiwan. The activity, and radio calls, was its answer.

The Chinese radio communications were conducted in a quiet, polite, and procedural manner. That is precisely the problem: Beijing does not need these exchanges to sound threatening for them to serve a jurisdictional purpose.

Beijing’s “gray zone” playbook around Taiwan has always relied more on administrative repetition than on dramatic escalation. Coast guard “patrols” become routine; “safety inspections” become standing operations; and “fisheries management” becomes a category of authority Beijing claims without ever having earned it. Each line item, taken alone, sounds bureaucratic. Stacked over years, the documented pattern has produced facts on the water that do not match the law on paper.

Until this month, the technique was directed almost entirely at Taiwanese vessels. It has now been extended to foreign-flagged commercial shipping matters. The danger is not the content of the calls, it is the precedent that, when repeated quietly enough, allows Chinese maritime agencies to claim a regulatory role over international commercial traffic in waters where they have no recognized enforcement authority.

Taipei has been on the receiving end of these tactics for years and knows what to do. International commercial shipping has not. The vessels that pass through the waters east of Taiwan operate under flag states and international classification societies, rather than under the authority of either Beijing or Taipei. If their captains begin to accept Chinese radio inquiries as part of normal transit, even out of caution rather than recognition, Beijing acquires something it cannot otherwise get: a record. That record becomes the case Beijing makes for pressure operations that have moved east of the strait since 2024.

Geography, in this case, is incredibly important. The Taiwan Strait is the surface area most Taiwan observers watch.

The waters east of Taiwan, less covered, are where any sustained-access, reinforcement or quarantine campaign would have to operate.

They connect Taiwan to the wider Pacific and to the logistics arteries of US, Japanese and Philippine forces. Those waters will be the critical artery through which Taiwan’s external support either flows or is severed.

However, the strategic significance of Beijing’s actions lies not in their immediate effects, but in the opportunities they create for future operations. For example, a quarantine-style operation, such as selective inspections of vessels suspected of carrying contraband under Chinese regulations, the declaration of exclusion zones around energy infrastructure, or coordinated information requests during a political crisis, would require a pre-existing record of routine Chinese maritime activity in the area for justification.

Each polite radio communication now serves as documentation in this evolving case. The critical issue is not that these scenarios have already commenced, but that administrative practices established during peacetime facilitate their later introduction and obscure their escalation.

Jurisdictional expansion does not occur through overt kinetic action, such as armed attack or invasion, but rather through incremental administrative actions. Each radio communication that elicits a response, even a firm refusal, is recorded. Similarly, each routine inquiry that remains uncontested further contributes to the accumulation of precedent.

Beijing’s claims might shift from being contested to becoming normalized. National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) described this process on X, stating that the Hai Xun and China Coast Guard vessels were “harassing commercial ships in Taiwan’s EEZ to fabricate a facade of PRC jurisdiction,” reffering to the exclusive economic zone and the People’s Republic of China. The term “fabrication” is appropriate, as this jurisdiction lacks a basis in maritime law and is being constructed incrementally through open radio communications.

Some observers might argue that concerns regarding the radio communications are exaggerated, noting that calls without enforcement do not constitute coercion, that no vessels were boarded and that the operation has concluded. However, that perspective overlooks the cumulative nature of administrative coercion. The history of Chinese maritime claim-building, including incidents at Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), the Senkaku patrols, and the “nine-dash line” presentations, demonstrates a pattern of incremental actions presented as routine. For instance, the 2012 Scarborough standoff began with civilian vessel encounters and Chinese “fisheries enforcement,” ultimately resulting in a China Coast Guard cordon that remains in place.

Each individual step appeared minor, but the lack of response allowed the claims to become normalized.

The response should be small, persistent and unflashy. Taipei is already doing the most important part: documenting the operation publicly and instructing commercial vessels, on the record, to ignore Chinese broadcasts. The CGA should maintain that posture and turn the documentation into a public dataset, including incident logs, broadcast transcripts where available, and flag-state breakdowns.

Washington’s calls to cease coercion suggest the US administration is willing to back the play; quiet outreach to Singapore, Liberia and Benin, and through them to the International Maritime Organization, can reinforce that no foreign-flagged captain is obliged to answer a Chinese maritime agency in the waters. Insurers and classification societies also benefit from clear guidance, preventing ambiguity from becoming precedent.

The temptation is to treat all this as too small to matter, which plays right into Beijing’s hands.

Ethan Connell is an assistant director at the Taiwan Security Monitor and a graduate student at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. His research focuses on maritime security and cross-strait military affairs. Jonathan Walberg is the associate director of the Taiwan Security Monitor. He is also a doctoral student at the University of Virginia, and a fellow at the Center for Security Policy Studies.

title: If Beijing radios, say you are busy


content_text:
INTERLEAGUE PROPOSAL:  Pilots coach Iurgi Caminos said a series should be held between his team and Taiwan Professional Basketball League champs the Dreamers

The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots on Thursday routed the Taipei Fubon Braves 107-81 in Game 7 of the P.League+ Finals to secure back-to-back championships, with Taiwanese basketball legend Lin Chih-chieh of the Braves playing the final game of his career.

Pilots big man Alec Brown, who averaged 15.2 points and 8.3 rebounds across the seven-game series, was named Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP). He knocked down four three-pointers and scored 14 points on Thursday.

Brown said that the series tested the Pilots in ways they had not experienced during a dominant regular season, forcing them to rely on defense and hustle after struggling to shoot well throughout much of the series.

Players and staff of the Taoyuan Pauian Pilots celebrate with the trophy after winning Game 7 of the P.League+ Finals against the Taipei Fubon Braves to secure the title at the Taoyuan Arena on Thursday. Photo: CNA

“For us to push through those moments, fight, play defense and do the little things to make up for that lack of shooting, I’m just really proud of the guys for coming together,” he said.

Pilots star forward Lu Chun-hsiang, who recently won his third consecutive P.League+ regular-season MVP award, led the team with 26 points, followed by Setric Deon Miller Jr’s 24.

Braves shooting guard Archie Lee Goodwin III posted a game-high 44 points, including a 26-point third quarter that broke the previous finals record of 19 points in a quarter, set by Jeremy Lin.

Goodwin’s scoring rampage kept the Braves within 12 points at the start of the fourth quarter, but the Pilots opened the fourth quarter with a 15-6 run.

The Pilots bulldozed through the four-team league and finished the regular season with a 21-3 record, making them the overwhelming favorites to win the title.

However, the Braves, who finished second at 12-12, pushed the defending champions to the limit by winning games 1, 3 and 5 to take a 3-2 series lead.

However, the Pilots controlled Game 7 from start to finish, never trailing after Lu’s step-back three-pointer gave them a 10-8 lead after four minutes.

Braves head coach Roger Hsu said that his players appeared exhausted after failing to close out the series in a 72-69 loss on Tuesday.

“You could tell the players had nothing left today, both offensively and defensively,” Hsu said.

Lin Chih-chieh, 44, who is set to retire after the season, finished the final game of his career with two points and seven rebounds.

Asked about ending his career without another championship, he said he was more disappointed for the team than for himself.

“I felt regret that we as a team could not win the title,” he said. “It was a shame that we did not take the last game [Game 6] in Taipei.”

The P.League+ is one of two professional basketball leagues in Taiwan. The other one, the Taiwan Professional Basketball League, consists of seven teams, with the Formosa Dreamers beating the New Taipei Kings 4-3 in the Finals to win the franchise’s first title on June 6.

At Thursday’s post-game news conference, Pilots head coach Iurgi Caminos proposed to hold an interleague series, assuming the Dreamers to be their opponents.

“I want to have a Taiwan Series next summer. My proposal is one game in Taoyuan, one game in Taichung. If there is a third one, maybe we can play in Hsinchu or Miaoli, and we draw to play the first home game and see who is the real champions of Taiwan,” Caminos said.

title: Pilots secure the P.League+ title


content_text:
Mexico on Thursday took advantage of a defensive blunder by South Korea to win 1-0 and become the first team to advance to the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup, sending fans onto the streets across the country to celebrate.

It marks a major triumph for a team who failed to get out of the group stage in 2022 and now have won twice on home soil in front of jubilant crowds.

Mexico players celebrated at midfield, and waved to fans who cheered and sang from the packed stands at Estadio Akron.

Mexico’s Luis Romo, top right, scores against South Korea during their Group A FIFA World Cup match at the Estadio Akron in Zapopan, Mexico, on Thursday. Photo: AP

As soon as the final whistle blew, the mariachis began to sing at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City, while thousands of people walked in from all directions. Some streets in Guadalajara were filled with drivers honking horns, and fans chanting and waving Mexican flags.

Luis Romo scored in the 50th minute after South Korea goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu collided with defender Lee Gi-hyuk and dropped the ball inside the area.

Romo easily found the open net after picking up the loose ball.

People watch the FIFA World Cup match between the Czech Republic and South Africa on a screen at the Staropramen brewery in Prague on Thursday. Photo: EPA

“The mistake that we made was unfortunate,” South Korea coach Hong Myung-bo said of his goalkeeper’s lapse.

South Korea nearly equalized in the 87th minute when Mexico goalkeeper Raul Rangel stopped a header from close range by Cho Gue-sung, then made an even better save of Yang Hyun-jun’s attempt on the rebound, extending his right arm to keep the ball from crossing the line.

“It was very quick, it was pure reaction,” Rangel said. “I couldn’t really tell you what I saw, because I remember the moment of impact with my teammate and me having the ball.”

Mexico have secured top spot in Group A with a game to play with six points in two matches, three more than South Korea and five more than the Czech Republic and South Africa, who drew 1-1 at the Atlanta Stadium earlier on Thursday.

The top two teams from each group move on to the round of 32, along with the eight third-placed teams with the best records.

“We’ve been doing very well,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said. “It wasn’t a great match, but I think that our opponent didn’t let us do too much, but we still were able to score, on that mistake, in addition to another two or three opportunities.”

Aguirre said it felt good for the players to guarantee their spot in the next round in Mexico City.

“It relieves some of the pressure,” he said. “But not for me, for the players. They are euphoric, they are very happy.”

Mexico opened with a 2-0 win over South Africa, while South Korea rallied for a 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic.

Mexico are to close their group play on Wednesday against the Czech Republic in Mexico City, while South Korea face on South Africa in Monterrey.

In Group B, Canada and Switzerland picked up wins.

At the BC Place Vancouver, Qatar’s World Cup defeat to Canada on Thursday went so awry that goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada appeared to break down in tears after the final whistle, receiving comfort from a teammate and Canada’s Jacob Schaffelburg.

“It was a tough match, because everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” coach Julen Lopetegui said after the 6-0 trouncing. “That’s how football is sometimes.”

Qatar played two men down for most of the second half after a pair of red cards, the worst defeat in the Persian Gulf country’s short World Cup history.

Standout left back Homam Ahmed was the first player sent off. His yellow card was upgraded to a red in the 33rd minute.

The second red card was issued to midfielder Assim Madibo, who tackled Canada’s Ismael Kone from behind, breaking Kone’s lower left leg. Kone was stretchered off the field and taken to a hospital for surgery.

In Inglewood, California, Switzerland coach Murat Yakin said he timed a triple substitution after the second-half hydration break, with the speedy players who came on leading a spectacular barrage of goals that gave them a 4-1 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Los Angeles Stadium.

title: Mexico book berth in knockouts


content_text:
The Iranian football federation on Thursday said that it would lodge a complaint with FIFA, claiming its team are being subjected to travel restrictions during the FIFA World Cup in North America.

Iran wanted to fly from their base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, to the US two days before their next match, against Belgium in Los Angeles tomorrow.

However, a spokesman for the Iranian federation said that its request was turned down.

Switzerland coach Murat Yakin celebrates after their Group B FIFA World Cup match against Bosnia and Herzegovina at Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood, California, on Thursday. Photo: Reut

“Despite having submitted its preparation schedule for the tournament well in advance, Iran’s national football team has once again encountered restrictions imposed by the organizers, affecting the implementation of its technical staff’s plans,” the spokesman said.

“Given that the game will be played at 12pm local time in Los Angeles, the Football Federation of Iran requested that the team be allowed to travel to Los Angeles two days before the match,” he said.

The federation said the aim of its request was to allow players “to adapt to the match conditions, complete their final training session and finalize preparations.”

Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada reacts after their Group B FIFA World Cup match against Canada at BC Place Vancouver on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

“Despite the technical reasons presented by the federation, the request was once again denied,” the spokesman said.

“The federation will formally express its dissatisfaction and lodge an official complaint with FIFA through the appropriate channels,” he added.

Team officials were also angry that they had to leave Los Angeles the night of their first game of the World Cup, a 2-2 draw against New Zealand.

The US administration has pushed back against the Iranian claims.

Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, on Monday said that Iran had been informed in advance that they would only be allowed to enter the US on the day before the game.

“The team will be allowed to come in, match day minus one, so the day before the match,” Giuliani told CBS News. “They’ll be asked to leave the day that the match wraps up, so the evening of the match. And they’ll be able to do that again in Los Angeles.”

The procedure would be the same for Iran’s final group game against Egypt in Seattle on June 26, he said.

title: Iran complain to FIFA over travel restrictions in US


title: Sanctions on N Korea ineffective: Lee

content_text:
NUCLEAR-ARMED STATE: South Korea’s president said US President Donald Trump had told him that ‘the time had come to pay attention to the North Korea issue’

Assistance from Russia had rendered sanctions imposed on nuclear-armed North Korea “ineffective,” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said yesterday after discussing the matter with US President Donald Trump.

Lee and Trump met at a G7 summit in France this week, where they discussed the long-running standoff between South Korea and its northern neighbor.

“I told him sanctions and pressure are ineffective,” Lee told reporters in Seoul.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung speaks during a press conference on his G7 trip at the presidential Blue House in Seoul yesterday. Photo: AFP

“The effectiveness of sanctions has diminished due to military cooperation between North Korea and Russia stemming from the war in Ukraine,” he said.

“Even a small amount of assistance from Russia is of great help to North Korea,” he added.

Pyongyang is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear program. The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

While in France, Trump signed a deal aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, and speculation has been rife that his administration will next shift its diplomatic focus to North Korea.

Lee said Trump had told him in that “the time had come to pay attention to the North Korea issue.”

On Sunday, Trump posted an uncaptioned photo of himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un taken at a meeting in Singapore in 2018.

Kim has recently sought to enhance his standing with his allies, sending troops and munitions to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine.

He also hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Pyongyang soon after Xi had held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The White House said Xi and Trump had “confirmed their shared goal of denuclearizing North Korea” during their summit in China.

However, neither Pyongyang nor Beijing mentioned the issue in their official statements following the Xi-Kim summit — which experts interpreted as a sign of China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearization and sanctions relief.

Lee yesterday said that the international community “cannot abandon the goal of denuclearization” of North Korea.

“The key point President Trump made was that it was unfortunate that possible measures had not been taken before North Korea became a nuclear-armed state,” he said.

“I also said that we can no longer deal with the North Korean nuclear issue in the same way we deal with other countries, and President Trump agreed,” Lee added.

Trump met Kim three times during his first term — once declaring they were “in love” — as he pushed to hammer out a long-coveted deal on denuclearization.

Lee said Trump told him that he wanted to pursue a new meeting with Kim “if there is a way to do so.”

Lee added that in a meeting at the Vatican this week he had invited Pope Leo XIV for a visit next year, to attend World Youth Day in Seoul.

“I also requested that a visit to North Korea be arranged, if possible, alongside a visit to the DMZ during his trip,” he said, referring to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.

“The pope responded that he would actively consider and pursue the matter,” Lee said.


content_text:
‘PRO-FAMILY’: Representatives from 18 nations approved a charter urging governments to withdraw from treaties or agreements promoting LGBT, abortion or sex education

Lawmakers from more than a dozen African countries have pledged to push new bills restricting LGBT rights, after a conference in Ghana that brought together self-described “pro-family” activists from across Africa and Europe, participants said.

The African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty took place in Accra on June 3 to 6, a week after Ghana’s parliament passed one of the continent’s toughest anti-LGBT measures, a bill criminalizing LGBT promotion.

The gathering reflects a broader shift toward more restrictive laws targeting LGBT people in parts of Africa that participants said was being encouraged by conservative figures in the US and Europe, and has gained new momentum since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

People march in the streets to promote diversity and inclusive family values as Ghana hosts the African Regional Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty in Accra on June 5. Photo: Reuters

Some attendees said they saw an opportunity to promote their agendas under Trump, whose administration — unlike those of former US presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden — does not promote LGBT rights as part of its foreign policy.

“When you return to your respective capitals, let the resolutions we adopt here not gather dust in the archives of our secretariats. Let them be translated into active bills, robust budgetary allocations and rigorous oversight,” Ghanaian Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin said in his opening remarks.

“Go home and tell your people that their representatives have resolved to protect the sanctuaries of their homes, the heritage of their ancestors, and the sovereignty of their nations,” he said.

More than half of Africa’s 54 countries criminalize same-sex sexual acts. Several countries, including Uganda and Senegal, have recently gone a step further, adopting laws that criminalize LGBT “promotion” — something Ghana’s lawmakers approved late last month.

WESTERN INFLUENCE

Organizers said lawmakers from 20 countries attended the conference held at Ghana’s parliament. It was unclear how many intend to introduce new legislation based on the discussions.

Reuters spoke to five participants and reviewed more than 100 pages of presentations given at the conference. It could not determine the role of foreign activists in shaping the agenda, nor find evidence of foreign funding.

Sharon Slater, president of the US-based conservative group Family Watch International, has attended previous editions of the conference in Uganda. She told Reuters she was invited this year, but chose not to attend.

Speakers included Henk Jan van Schothorst, the Dutch executive director of the advocacy group Christian Council International. He urged African governments to resist pressure to ban so-called conversion therapy, which aims to make gay people straight.

“These policies are not only reserved for the Netherlands and for Europe. They are coming to Africa,” he said of the bans, describing them as “ideological colonization” by Western powers.

In another presentation, Kenyan doctor Wahome Ngare defined homosexual as “the young man sexually molested by the father” and transgender as “the young lady sexually molested by strangers.”

The conference concluded with lawmakers approving an “African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values,” drafted at earlier meetings in Uganda.

The 32-page document urges governments to withdraw from treaties or agreements — including at the UN and with foreign donors — seen as promoting “the LGBT agenda,” abortion or sex education that is not abstinence-focused.

The charter also says signatories should work to enact national laws that “safeguard African culture and cultural values.” Lawmakers from 18 of the 20 represented countries approved the charter.

HEALTH IMPACT

Health officials have highlighted the public health implications of anti-LGBT laws, which can push LGBT people into hiding, including men who have sex with men who face higher HIV prevalence than the general population.

Reuters reported in April that fewer HIV patients were visiting treatment centers in Senegal amid a wave of arrests coinciding with the debate over that country’s new law.

For LGBT people in Ghana, the same debate has already heightened fear.

“I constantly self-censor, hide, watch my back. That’s not safety, that’s survival,” said an African photographer and longtime resident of Accra. “So yes, leaving has crossed my mind. That breaks my heart because Ghana is my hme.”

Reuters reported in March that the “pro-family” US group MassResistance had been in contact with activists in Ghana backing the bill, as well as Senegal’s new law.

Ghana’s bill is awaiting sign-off by President John Dramani Mahama, who has previously said he would sign such a measure into law, but recently said there were procedural issues.

A coalition of more than 100 African civil society groups has urged Mahama to reject the bill, saying the government risked allowing “external actors with resources and reach to shape its domestic legislation.”

The US Department of State has said Trump’s approach to foreign assistance ensures taxpayer dollars are not “wasted on divisive social and gender issues.”

At the Accra conference, Ugandan former lawmaker Sarah Opendi welcomed the shift.

“Let us first thank the American people for voting for President Trump. The conversation in America today is different,” she said.

title: African lawmakers back tougher anti-LGBT laws


content_text:
For the first time in nearly a decade, a sitting Taiwanese president sat down with the foreign press corps — offering both access and a pointed defense of media freedom in the face of Beijing’s intimidation

The last time Taiwan’s foreign correspondents were invited to a special briefing with a sitting president was in 2015. That was two presidents ago under Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

But Thursday morning, President William Lai (賴清德) welcomed the nation’s international press corps warmly, speaking specifically to the theme of press freedom.

Lai addressed Taiwan’s foreign press corps saying, “You live, work and report in Taiwan.”

“Thank you for your professionalism and upholding the spirit of press freedom,” he continued. “As you engage in your work of journalism, you let the world see Taiwan.”

The timing of this event, hosted by the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents Club (TFCC) of which the author is a member, was hardly an accident.

In February, authorities in Beijing expelled New York Times reporter Vivian Wang from China in retaliation for an interview conducted with Lai at the newspaper’s December DealBook summit in New York, according to the newspaper’s reports.

The expelled reporter, Wang, had no role in either the interview or the forum, and Beijing’s message to the international media was clear: if you platform Lai, whom Beijing characterizes as a “Taiwan independence separatist” and a “troublemaker,” we’ll punish you.

Though Wang’s expulsion happened in February, the story didn’t break in the mainstream media until a New York Times report of May 29. The newspaper described the incident as “the latest example of a crackdown by Beijing on foreign correspondents whose reporting challenges the official line of President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) authoritarian government.

On June 1, two days after the Times’ story, Lai’s office issued a statement.

“China’s use of baseless pretexts and brutal methods to threaten the media and interfere with press freedom not only fails to improve its international image, but also highlights that China is currently a source of instability and a troublemaker,” the statement read.

Around the same time, Lai’s office contacted the TFCC, saying it wanted to organize a special briefing for the international press, according to TFCC officers.

David Demes, TFCC’s Vice Chair and a German freelance reporter, said the event’s planning took about two weeks, though due to complicated planning, club members were only given two days advance notice.

“President Lai does give regular media briefings and foreign journalists are welcome to attend those, but the last time an event happened specially for the foreign press was in 2015,” Demes said.

The press conference, held Thursday morning at 10am at Taipei Guest House, a Japanese colonial-era mansion, accommodated between 40 and 50 international media, including journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Guardian, Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun, Kyodo News, Agence France Press, CNN, the BBC, Sweden’s largest newspaper Expressen and other media from Germany and Spain.

Lai addressed the group from a podium in a stately wood-paneled room with Corinthian columns, gold-leaf encased moldings and Art Deco chandeliers.

CHINA’S PRESS CRACKDOWN

As evident in the pre-event chatter, the room had already speculated on the possibility that Lai was using this event as an answer to Beijing’s press crackdown.

In the Q&A, one reporter directly posed the question of Lai. Referencing the New York Times report and Beijing’s promise to punish media for speaking to him, he asked, “In this situation, what is your response? Today’s press conference with the international media is actually an extremely rare event. Might we be able to consider this as your reply?”

Lai answered, “I know that everyone here, whether you’ve worked in mainland China in the past, or are now in Taiwan, you must have experienced pressure from China, or even coercion or repression across borders.”

“This is why I admire you all,” Lai continued. “Because under pressure, you are still willing to uphold your professionalism in your reporting on Taiwan.”

Despite Lai’s recent expressions of appreciation, Taiwan’s foreign press corps has been expanding for a decade or more. This growth is in part thanks to Beijing, which got much stricter with foreign journalists after Xi became the nation’s leader in 2012. And, in the eyes of many in Taiwan, this has brought improvements to the way Taiwan’s narrative is understood internationally.

According to Michael Turton, an academic who began blogging about international media presentations of Taiwan in 2005 and is now a Taipei Times columnist, a major shift in reporting started from around 2017. Before that time, Taiwan was “covered largely from Beijing and Hong Kong,” he said.

Correspondents would fly in to Taipei only for elections and other major stories, but relatively few of them were based here or developed a good on-the-ground understanding.

As a result, the language used to report on Taiwan was full of tropes that mirrored those of China’s state media — like that Taiwan was a “renegade province” or “breakaway province” of China, or that those who advocated for Taiwan’s national sovereignty were “separatists” or “secessionists.”

The migration of journalists from Beijing to Taipei accelerated around 2020 thanks both to COVID and a new wave of punitive journalist expulsions by China. Within a very short time, TFCC membership ballooned, according to Demes and other club officers.

“While some of those correspondents have since moved on, overall, those developments led to a lasting expansion of the foreign media community based in Taiwan,” Demes said.

Chris Horton, an American journalist based in Taiwan since 2015 and former TFCC vice president, refers to this influx as “the 2020 crowd.”

“[Twenty-twenty] was a big year. China was kicking out journalists and not admitting new journalists. So there were journalists who wanted to cover China and Taiwan was the closest they could get,” he said.

Before coming to Taiwan, Horton cut his teeth as a writer in China, where he lived for 13 years from 2000 to 2013. After moving to Taiwan, he said, “I realized how overlooked Taiwan’s story had been and how much it had been obscured in China’s shadow.”

Turton also noticed changes coming in step with Taiwan’s press corps expansion.

“Not only has the coverage been more cognizant of Taiwan’s many nuances, but a greater variety of topics have been covered,” he said.

ACCESS

Though Thursday’s briefing was Lai’s first direct encounter with Taiwan’s foreign press, Demes described the administration’s attitude towards the TFCC as “extremely open.” In recent months, the club has hosted briefings with a number of key members of Lai’s cabinet, including heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Coast Guard.

Other club members noted that this level of access is much greater than that during the administration of President Tsai Ying-wen (蔡英文), who never met with Taiwan’s press during her eight year tenure from 2016 to 2024.

To begin Thursday morning’s press briefing, Lai opened with a 10 minute-prepared speech in Mandarin, delivered without notes or a teleprompter. “One got the feeling he’d really prepared for this,” commented one journalist.

Lai then opened the floor to questions. Many of these were predictable, addressing US arms purchases, Taiwan-Japan relations and China’s “gray zone” tactics. As he replied with standard boilerplate statements, he referred to notes on the table in front of him.

Yet on other questions, including one about an impasse in Taiwan’s domestic politics, Lai looked out at the room and spoke off the cuff. Though the Q&A was scheduled for 30 minutes, when press secretary Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) called “last question,” Lai interjected, “We can go a little longer. This is a rare opportunity.”

When the Q&A finally finished, Lai announced, “Next, can we talk about something more relaxed. Like, how is your life in Taiwan? Is there anything we need to improve?”

Though Lai can appear very wooden on camera, in person he is an able orator, if not a spectacular one, and he comes across as extremely genuine. If anything, he is earnest to a fault.

After Lai finished speaking, he walked into the press pool to shake hands with all who’d come to attend. Speaking in English and Chinese, he was jovial, asking people where they were from and, with one Spanish journalist, chatting about the World Cup.

But earlier on when Lai had been speaking, he had already told us what point he was trying to make today: “This is the main point, how Taiwan is different from China. We have and respect press freedom. Taiwan will continue to safeguard the freedom of the press whether it be for international media or domestic media. We will continue to stand together with our media professionals.”

people: 蔡英文 賴清德 習近平 馬英九

title: Taiwan’s president meets the world’s reporters


title: Donovan’s Deep Dives: The Taiwan Go Go alliance’s prospects

political-parties: 時代力量 社會民主黨 無黨團結聯盟 綠黨

content_text:
By pooling brands, supporters and social media reach, four minor parties hope to turn scattered votes into real local victories — and perhaps lay the groundwork for something bigger in 2028

Four small parties announced in September last year that they were forming an alliance. In the months following, the alliance announced its name, Taiwan Go Go (TGG, 台灣前進陣線). They did this to maximize their chances under Taiwan’s political system.

In 2005, the National Assembly convened to add amendments to the constitution. Among the changes were to abolish itself in favor of referendums for future constitutional changes and to make changes to how national elections were conducted starting in 2008.

These changes, plus subsequent electoral law changes, mean that today legislators serve four-year terms and the number of legislative seats was cut from 225 to 113. Today, 73 seats are single-representative constituencies based on first-past-the-post voting, 34 seats are lawmakers elected by a by-party vote with representatives drawn from a party list and six legislators represent highland and lowland constituencies from indigenous communities through single non-transferable voting.

At a news conference in Taipei in September last year, from front row, left, Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chairman Wang Sing-huan, New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang, Green Party Taiwan coconvener Joyance Wang and Taiwan Obasang Political Equality Party convener Lin Shih-han hold a sign bearing a logo of the new alliance of the four parties alongside other party representatives. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

To qualify for a party list legislative seat, the party must receive at least five percent of the vote. Subsidies of NT$30 per voter are given to presidential candidates who receive at least one-third of the vote count of the winner, and NT$50 per vote is given to parties that receive at least three percent of the party list vote.

These significantly changed the system to benefit bigger, better-organized parties — specifically the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), both in terms of seats won and in subsidy payouts. Third parties have still managed to hold on via the party list vote, but typically in total they win eight or fewer seats in the 113-member legislature. Though rare, third parties occasionally win constituency seats.

Previously, seats were multi-member districts where it was possible for candidates to win with a relatively small percentage of the vote. Arguably, this was more representative, but it also meant some kooks and nutcases were elected.

The flying fish logo was chosen to represent Taiwan Go Go because it does not just glide endlessly in one direction, but rather leaps out of the water, assesses its surroundings and confirms its direction, and dives back in to push forward. It also represents Taiwan’s ocean heritage and the four fins the four parties. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Local city and county commissioner seats are still elected using the multi-member system. This requires a very different strategic approach.

The stated purpose of TGG is to coordinate to maximize the chances that each of the four parties will have a fighting chance at winning local commissioner seats or even a city mayor or county commissioner position.

MEET THE TGG

The four parties making up TGG are the New Power Party (NPP, 時代力量), Taiwan Obasan Political Equality Party (OBA, 小民參政歐巴桑聯盟), Green Party Taiwan (GPT, 台灣綠黨) and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP, 台灣基進).

Though the parties differ in some of their priorities, they are all pro-Taiwan, putting them in the pan-green camp. They are also center-left or left wing.

They have signed a joint declaration outlining shared principles, including defending Taiwan against Chinese aggression and boosting national defense. They also pledged to narrow the wealth gap, protect the environment and accelerate the nation’s energy transition.

Their English name comes from the 1971 Little League World Series, when Taiwanese independence activists hired a plane to fly a banner over the stadium reading “Go Go Taiwan” in defiance of the KMT. It is also a loose translation of the qianjin (前進) in their name.

In January, the four parties joined with the Social Democratic Party (SDP, 社會民主黨) and the Taiwan Solidarity Party (TSP, formerly Taiwan Solidarity Union, 台聯黨) to announce a “fourth force” with the narrower goal of supplanting the “third force” of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

Most likely, the TSP was not invited to join the TGG because of their recent hard-right-wing turn, though they are also pro-Taiwan independence.

The SDP would be a better fit for TGG, but either they were not invited, or chose not to join. Possibly, this is due to the SDP’s strategic and personal ties to the DPP, which is a far more powerful partner.

ELECTORAL MATH

The NPP is the biggest of the three parties. Taipei and the Hakka belt running through Hsinchu and Miaoli counties are their strongholds. In 2022, the party won six councillor seats, placing them fourth among the parties after the KMT, DPP and TPP. They came in a distant third for Keelung Mayor, Pingtung and Miaoli county commissioner races.

In the same year, the TSP won two commissioner seats, and the GPT one. The TSP is strong in the south, and the GPT in the north. The problem is that of the nine commissioner seats won by the three parties, only four remain — all NPP.

Though multi-member districts provide some opportunities for small parties, the problem is that without party subsidies won through the national party-list legislative vote, the parties have few resources. In 2024, the NPP narrowly missed the three percent threshold for subsidies by 0.43 percent.

Subsidies for local elections are tied to individual candidates, not parties. That leaves little incentive for candidates to stick with small parties and their rules other than branding. Many run as independents, or go independent after conflicts with their party. Having three councillors does have the bonus of being able to form a caucus, but in 2022, only the NPP pulled that off (in Taipei).

Likely, they hope that cumulatively their supporters could put more candidates over the top. The four parties do have overlapping issues, but each has a unique character and focus. Whether they can convince their supporters to back an allied party remains uncertain.

Assessing their support is also tricky. In the national party-list legislative election the votes are by party, and in 2024 the NPP got 2.57 percent, OBA 0.93, GPT 0.85 and TSP 0.69. However, of the four parties, likely only the NPP’s count was remotely reflective of real support.

Strategic voting is common, and voters who might support the OBA, GPT or TSP likely voted DPP instead, knowing those three parties had no chance of passing either the three percent subsidy threshold or the five percent needed to secure a legislative seat.

That means it is possible that their support would be noticeably higher if voters thought they stood a chance. They know this, so this strategy makes sense. One bright sign is that already at least one independent candidate is running under the TGG banner, and more are considering it. If they share the TGG’s basic platform, they have little to lose by joining this alliance.

WILL IT WORK?

It is too early to tell. As an alliance, not a formal party, coordination will be crucial for it to add any tangible benefit. All of the challenges facing small parties remain, and they have few resources available for their own candidates, much less those of other parties. Historically, small party alliances have not lasted.

That said, they can leverage their social media and contact lists to help each other, which could help.

If they are successful, the next step would be to adjust their strategy for the 2028 national elections. The catch is that to win either subsidies or seats in the legislature, they would have to formally register the TGG as a party.

How would that work? Would each party be willing to give up on their own unique history, culture and identity to devote to a bigger whole? It seems a long shot.

However, if three conditions are met, it is not entirely implausible. The first is that it would have to show tangible results in November’s elections, otherwise there is no point.

Second, their hatred of the KMT and TPP would need to be high enough to motivate them to sacrifice. This is conceivable if they are successful this year.

Third, they would need to work out a mechanism to keep some identity for themselves. It is not inconceivable that they run as a unified party, with candidates also retaining their original identities. The Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (無黨團結聯盟) did something similar, and for a time had some success.

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: 約完砲「火燒鳥」驗尿卻正常！醫點出關鍵：你這就是淋病

content_text:
▲暑假期間時常有民眾發生不安全性行為，接著出現「火燒鳥」症狀。（示意圖／達志影像）

記者柯振中／綜合報導

泌尿科陳鈺昕醫師指出，暑假期間常有民眾在不安全性行為後出現排尿刺痛、灼熱等「火燒鳥」症狀，即便常規驗尿結果正常，症狀卻持續一週不散。陳醫師表示，一般常規尿液檢查主要是評估腎臟、膀胱等泌尿系統健康，最多僅能判定泌尿道發炎，根本無法辨別是由哪種性病或細菌所造成。

暑假驚魂對話天天上演 患者驚呼常規驗尿明明說正常

關於診間的真實面貌，陳鈺昕醫師分享，每年暑假幾乎天天上演這段對話。當醫師告知患者「你這是淋病喔」的時候，患者總是一臉不可置信，明明才剛才驗過尿，也被告知常規驗尿的結果一切正常。

陳鈺昕醫師對此解釋，一般常規的尿液檢查，是根本驗不出性病的。這段對話能凸顯出大眾對於健康檢查的認知誤區，總以為常規尿檢就能包辦所有疾病，卻不知早已讓自己暴露在傳染風險中。

性病篩檢須用核酸檢測 四大病原體潛伏空窗期各不同

關於性病篩檢的正確方式，陳鈺昕醫師說明，除非採用專門的特定尿液性病篩檢，也就是PCR核酸檢測來直接偵測尿液中潛藏的病原體DNA，否則通常不會主動納入常規健檢中，病患必須事先向醫師提出檢驗需求。

陳鈺昕醫師指出，容易引起尿道炎的常見性病包括披衣菌、淋病、生殖黴漿菌與陰道滴蟲。這類病原體感染後除了會導致尿道搔癢、排尿灼熱之外，其發病潛伏期約數天至四週不等，且皆各自具備不同的檢驗空窗期。

黴漿菌抗藥性強恐致不孕 抽血驗尿黏膜採樣缺一不可

針對生殖黴漿菌的危害，陳鈺昕醫師透露，該病原體多數無症狀且抗藥性極強，若自行買藥吃會增加治療難度，甚至演變成副睪炎或子宮頸炎進而導致不孕。陳醫師強調，一旦出現排尿異常分泌物，應盡早諮詢專業醫師。

陳鈺昕醫師最後提醒，不安全性行為後的完整性病篩檢需要透過抽血、驗尿與病灶採樣三管齊下。陳醫師解釋，梅毒與HIV須靠抽血，淋病靠PCR驗尿，而菜花等則需採集病灶分泌物送檢，只做單一常規驗尿絕對不夠。


content_text:
記者蔡宜芳／綜合報導

南韓影集《鐵拳教育》近來掀起追劇大熱潮，連帶捧紅劇中多位演員。其中，飾演玄中小學教師「崔智善」的24歲演員宋詩安，也因漂亮的外貌和精湛演技受到關注。她日前在社群分享拍攝心得，也曝光與「宇振媽媽」的私下互動，引來不少網友留言。

▲宋詩安在《鐵拳教育》中飾演小學老師。（圖／翻攝自Instagram／songsiaxn）

宋詩安17日在社群曬出多張拍攝現場幕後照，感性表示透過《鐵拳教育》學到非常多，「雖然有時要面對自己的不足而感到有些吃力的瞬間，但之所以能撐過那段時間，似乎是因為有著包含鍾燦導演在內、現場所有工作人員們的溫暖。」她也暖心喊話說：「希望所有邁向社會的人們都能遇到溫暖的人，因而不再感到孤單。由衷為所有朝著夢想前進的人們應援。」

▲宋詩安因參演《鐵拳教育》受到關注。（圖／翻攝自Instagram／songsiaxn）

在宋詩安公開的照片中，最引人注目的，莫過於飾演宇振媽媽的演員朴智妍寫給她的親筆信。在劇中，宋詩安飾演的崔智善因受到「怪獸家長」宇振媽媽的精神暴力，導致顏面神經失調，甚至一度想輕生。不過，兩人在私下的真實互動卻相當溫暖，只見朴智妍在信中寫道：「致漂亮的詩安，下次我們以能互相溫暖擁抱的角色再見吧。很高興認識妳，也辛苦了，要幸福喔！」期望未來能以關係友好的角色再合作，許多粉絲也對此表達期待。

▲▼宋詩安（下圖右）和朴智妍（下圖左）私底下感情不錯。（圖／翻攝自Instagram／songsiaxn）

title: 《鐵拳教育》24歲女老師爆紅！　揭宇振媽媽私下互動：下次溫暖擁抱


title: 金曲37／周湯豪首入圍歌王認「第一個想到她」罕見鬆口16年執念

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記者蔡琛儀／專訪

周湯豪去年推出專輯《LOVE RAGE HOPE》，首次挑戰搖滾概念專輯，還在台灣祭帶來搖滾金屬演出，成功「開死牆」，讓大批網友紛紛留言「道歉」。出道16年的他，今年更憑藉這張作品首度入圍金曲歌王。談起這張專輯，他坦言這是自己第一次以「完整概念」去做一張作品，不再只是單曲或風格混搭，而是在同一個框架下完成音樂、視覺、造型到影像的整體創作。

▲周湯豪首度入圍金曲歌王。（圖／記者周宸亘攝）

周湯豪當年頂著「比莉兒子」光環與帥氣外型進入演藝圈，之後憑藉〈帥到分手〉再創事業高峰。停不下來的他不只做音樂，還成立自己的整合行銷公司跨足幕後、親自操刀媽媽比莉重返演藝圈，更在自己的小巨蛋演唱會打造伸展台式舞台。從歌手、導演到創意總監，如今再以搖滾概念專輯獲得金曲獎肯定，他表示，自己過去習慣嘗試各種風格，但這次更像是以創意為核心出發，「不是單向思維，是很多面向一起做，對我來說反而比較輕鬆，也更能吸收。」

這張專輯圍繞著2000年前後的搖滾樂與Y2K文化，也是他年少時接觸音樂的啟蒙時期，專輯原本甚至差點命名為《千禧世代》。周湯豪坦言自己這些年一直都在完成小時候的執念與夢想，即使過程中歷經低潮與挫折，也從未動念放棄，「我一路以來，都是為了十幾歲的我瘋狂拼命。」過程中彷彿重新回到少年時期，「很像用現在的身體回到小時候，真的很爽。」

▲周湯豪直言一直都在為了少年時的自己拼命。（圖／記者周宸亘攝）

即便從〈帥到分手〉到近年的〈我的i〉都創下驚人流量與討論度，周湯豪始終沒有被數字牽著走，他直言自己從來不是為市場創作，「我不是為市場去做，所以有時候結果好，有時候不好，我沒有特別去想，只想著怎麼把東西做好。」對於這次獲得大眾及金曲獎評審肯定，他也看得相當平常，「我說真的，有沒有人聽我都很開心，不管這世界怎麼想，只要過程很開心、滿意，這感覺就是最棒的。」

憑藉著對音樂的熱愛與毅力一路走了16年，周湯豪認為創作人最難的從來不是成功，而是堅持，「畢竟你不會永遠都很順，不是每個作品都會有好的結果。」在他看來，真正能展現一個人價值與態度的時刻，往往是在不被看好、沒有掌聲的時候，「當你今天沒有這些東西的時候，你不好的時候，你還會不會堅持下去？我覺得我經歷過太多這樣的時刻，所以導致我很有這方面的堅持。」與他專輯歌曲〈未完成的夢〉頗為契合。

▲ 周湯豪和媽媽比莉感情極佳。（圖／環球提供）

而在這15年來，始終站在他身後的人，就是媽媽比莉。談到首度入圍金曲歌王，周湯豪透露比莉得知消息時激動到當場暴哭，「比莉姐一直是最相信我的人，她會適時鼓勵我，要我相信我自己。」他感性表示，每次獲得肯定時，腦中第一個想到的永遠都是一路支持自己的人，「像這樣入圍的時候，我通常都在想，一定要獻給支持我的人，我知道他們比我還開心，因為他們看著我一路走來有多不容易，所以我得知入圍時第一個想到的就是比莉姐。」更笑說典禮當天比莉一定又會哭。

▲周湯豪認為創作人最難的從來不是成功，而是堅持。（圖／記者周宸亘攝）