This Week in Taiwan 0321-0327
March 22: Two F-5E fighter jets from the Zhi-Hang Air Base in Taitung were returning from drill exercises in Pingtung but during a change of formation collided and crashed into the sea. Lieutenant Luo Shang-hua who parachuted from the jet was sent to the hospital and determined dead. He only recently married in early March. Another pilot Captain Pan Ying-chun is still missing. His child just turned a month old. On October 29 last year, a F-5E fighter jet from the Taitung base also crashed into the sea due to engine failure, killing the pilot.
March 23: The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, which determined September last year that the Chinese Association for Relief and Ensuing Services (CARES) is an affiliated organization of the Kuomintang (KMT), met again March 23 to determined that assets belonging to CARES were ill-gotten assets during the authoritarian KMT era and demanded that NT$900 million (about US$31.4 million) of assets be transferred to the state. This sum includes a campaign by CARES in 1961 to raise funds for mainland Chinese disaster victims totaling NT$34.2 million (about US$1.2 million) and US$751,000, which were also deemed ill-gotten assets and should be transferred to the state.
March 24: The Central Drought Response Conference decided to limit the water supply in Miaoli, Taichung, and parts of northern Changhua starting April 6 for two days a week. This is the first time in Taiwan that the water supply will be limited since 2015, and the proposed measure will affect 1.06 million households. The water supply for science parks and industrial zones will be reduced but not suspended.
March 25: European Union foreign ministers gathered in Brussels, Belgium, and sanctioned China, Myanmar, and Russia for their human rights abuses. This is the first time that the European Union has sanctioned Beijing since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. China responded by announcing retaliatory sanctions against 10 members of the European Parliament and national parliaments and four EU institutions. As of March 25, eight countries in the EU, including the Netherlands, Denamrk, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Slovenia, called Chinese ambassadors respectively to express their dissatisfaction with the retaliatory sanctions.
March 25: In the first press conference since taking office, President Joe Biden stated that the United States will not be silent on what is happening to the Xinjiang Uyghurs, Hong Kong, and domestic events within China. Biden again described Chinese President Xi Jinping as having no democracy in his bone. According to Biden, he will not let China surpass the United States as the most powerful country in the world under his watch.
March 26: Numerous international apparel brands, including H&M, saw their past statements suspending the use of Xinjiang cotton raw materials targeted, triggering an angry boycott by Chinese Internet users, which has expanded to impact brand ambassadors. Thus far, more than 40 mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese artists have terminated their contracts with related brands, of which Adidas was hit the hardest. Nearly 20 artists, including Eason Chan, terminated their contracts with the brand.
March 26: Taiwan and the United States signed a memorandum on coast guard cooperation, the first official document between the two countries since the Biden administration took office. Director Brent Christensen of the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) stated that the memorandum formalizes the long-standing close cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan coast guards.
The Ministry of National Defense announced that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) dispatched fighter jets, with as many as 20 intruding Taiwan's southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the largest-scale incursion to date this year. The Air Force dispatched air patrol forces to respond, broadcast drive-away messages, and monitor using anti-aircraft missile surveillance.
March 27: Ever Given, a mega container ship operated by Taiwan's Evergreen, was supposedly hit by strong winds on March 23 and accidentally ran aground in Egypt's Suez Canal, causing a two-way channel obstruction. A total of 331 cargo ships were blocked, causing US$10 billion in global trade losses. Oil prices also rose 5 percent due to blocked oil shipments.
On the evening of March 26, the rescue team dug a total of 20,000 cubic meters of sand around the ship's head and dispatched 10 tugboats. As of March 29, the Ever Given has been refloated and freed.