This Week in Taiwan 0320-0326
March 21: The University of Gothenburg in Sweden conducted a Varieties of Democracy project, revealing that the top three countries in the world most seriously affected by external disinformation are Taiwan, Latvia, and Palestine, and Taiwan has ranked first for nine consecutive years since 2013. Wang Yi-ting, an associate professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University who participated in the project, urges the public and the media to increase vigilance.
March 22: The Sino-Japanese Parliamentary Group held its annual meeting in Tokyo. President Tsai Ing-wen was invited to have a video conference with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to exchange perspectives on Taiwan's bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the situation in Ukraine, and the state of affairs in the region. President Tsai stated that Taiwan supports and stands on the same side of Ukraine, which is struggling for freedom and democracy. The parliamentary group also reiterated its resolution to support Taiwan's accession to the CPTPP.
March 23: The war between Russia and Ukraine has lasted for a month, drawing Taiwanese people's attention to cross-strait relations. According to the latest poll by TVBS Poll Center, 57 percent of Taiwanese are not worried about mainland China taking the opportunity to invade Taiwan, whereas 37 percent expressed concern. In the event that Beijing invades Taiwan, 62 percent would be willing to take up arms to defend Taiwan, while 26 percent would be unwilling. Additionally, some 55 percent do not believe that the United States will send troops to defend Taiwan, significantly more than the 30 percent who believe otherwise.
The ratio of Taiwanese who believe that the United States would send troops to defend Taiwan is nearly 30 percent lower than it was a decade ago. This may be related to the fact that the United States did not send troops to aid Ukraine.
March 23: Regarding whether compulsory conscription should be extended to a year, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng stated at the Legislative Yuan that the current military training service of four months is inadequate and unable to help defense operations, so conscription will be extended in the future. A draft research report will be released this year. In principle, the goal is to not amend the law and implement an extended conscription one year after public announcement.
March 23: In its report to the Legislative Yuan, the Ministry of National Defense indicated that Communist China has gradually increased the scale, frequency, and intensity of targeted real-world combat drills against Taiwan. Last year, about 900 sorties intruded Taiwan's southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Recently, civil aviation aircraft has intruded outer islets like Matsu and other gray areas, and cognitive warfare continues to test Taiwan's military response capabilities and pressure air defense, posing serious challenges to national security.
March 24: An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 on the Richter scale occurred off the cost of Hualien at 1:41 AM on March 23, the largest earthquake in the Hualien region in 49 years. Aftershocks continued. As of 8 AM on March 24, there were 79 earthquakes off the east cost of Hualien and Taitung. Thirty-two (32) pre-stressed beams of the Yuxing Bridge under construction in Yuli Township, Hualien, were either overturned or broken and need to be redone. But the old bridge structure is not damaged and has been restored to traffic. The incident is expected to delay the project for five months.
March 24: The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a draft amendment to the amount of health insurance coverage. The maximum insured monthly salary of NT$182,000 (about US$6,329) is to be raised to NT$219,500 (about US$7,634). It is estimated that the monthly burden of 130,000 people will increase by between NT$116 (about US$4) and NT$1,939 (about US$67.40), injecting an additional NT$1.7 billion (about US$59.1 million), to be implemented as soon as May. In addition, the suspension and reinstatement mechanism for overseas expatriates will be abolished.
March 25: The Legislative Yuan passed a constitutional amendment with a unanimous 109 votes of all legislators present to lower the voting age to 18. To take effect, the constitutional amendment still needs to be confirmed by referendum. The referendum threshold is more than half the number of total voters, about 9.65 million votes. The government prefers to hold the referendum alongside the November 26 local elections at the end of the year.