This Week in Taiwan 0731-0809
August 1: Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taoyuan mayoral candidate Lin Chih-chien remains caught up in allegations of thesis plagiarism. Director-General Chen Ming-tong of the National Security Bureau (NSB) once again came to the rescue. On July 31, he issued a statement emphasizing that he first assisted Lin in revising his thesis before handing it over to Yu Cheng-huang for reference. In response, Yu's attorney stated that his client is considering using judicial proceedings to resolve the disputes between the parties. Former DPP legislator Shen Fu-hsiung criticized Chen on Facebook on August 1 as "national shame." He argues that National Taiwan University should dismiss Chen's professorship, and he should be removed from the post of director-general of the NSB.
August 1: CNN broadcast an exclusive interview with Chairman Mark Liu of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. When asked about the possibility of mainland China invading Taiwan by force, Liu stated that this would be a situation where all parties would lose, and even TSMC plants controlled by the mainland will be unable to operate.
August 1: The Bureau of Labor Funds, Ministry of Labor, announced that affected by the global stock market crash, the labor fund accumulated losses of NT$445.5 billion (about US$14.8 billion) in the first half of the year, with a negative return rate of 8.69 percent. Notably, the labor insurance fund lost NT$72.7 billion (about US$2.4 billion) in the first half of this year. Observers are worried that the deficit situation of labor insurance will be exacerbated.
August 2: The special flight carrying Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the United States of House of Representatives landed 10:44 PM at Taipei Songshan Airport, but neither Taiwan nor the United States officially announced visiting Taiwan as part of her itinerary. Tens of thousands tracked the flight on the Internet, paralyzing the website Flightradar24 at one point. According to Flightradar24, Pelosi's special flight took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 3:42 PM on August 2, and the number of users tracking the flight remained at more than 200,000. When the flight landed at Taipei Songshan Airport, the number of people tracking exceeded 708,000, making it the largest number of people tracking airplane movement in history.
August 3: Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan and stayed for 19 hours. She visited the Legislative Yuan and Office of the President, received the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon presented by President Tsai Ing-wen, was interviewed by the media, and met with pro-democracy activists at a human rights museum, before departing Taiwan at 6 PM. During her visit, the websites of the Office of the President, Ministry of National Defense, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) saw cyber-attacks. Content defaming Pelosi appeared on the screen boards of 7-Eleven and Taiwan Railways. Spokesman Luo Ping-cheng of the Executive Yuan stated that the number of attacks on August 2 was up to 23 times that of a normal single day. Strengthened protection mechanisms have been activated, but fortunately no information security hazards have occurred.
August 4: Reports on social media cite the website of the U.S. Department of Justice pointing to Gephardt Group Government Affairs, a political public relations company, for receiving 16 payments made by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the United States to lobby Speaker Pelosi to visit. A total of US$3.14 million was paid.
MOFA retorted, stating that the allegation is purely fabricated and not true. MOFA explained TECRO's retaining public relations companies is consistent with long-standing government practice. It is a comprehensive effort and not for a single target or individual case.
The visit by Pelosi's delegation was funded by the U.S. government, and its itinerary in Taiwan was arranged by the American Institute in Taiwan.
August 5: Mainland China has intensified its intimidation tactics against Taiwan. Robert Tsao, founder of United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), announced that he would donate NT$3 billion (about US$100 million) to promote national defense education and publish a book on cognitive warfare, in order to help awaken Taiwanese to fight for freedom and democracy. The Executive Yuan expressed its gratitude to Tsao for his donation to national defense and stated that relevant ministries will discuss and work with him.
August 6: According to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, military exercises surrounding Taiwan held by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had little impact on the takeoff and landing of international flights, but transit flights were diverted to other flight information areas to avoid temporary danger zones. Flights were significantly reduced after 12 PM on August 4 and on August 5.
August 9: DPP Taoyuan mayoral candidate Lin Chih-chien has been mired in a thesis plagiarism scandal. On August 9, the academic ethics review committee of National Taiwan University (NTU) found that Lin plagiarized Yu Cheng-huang's master thesis. Because the circumstances are serious, the committee decided to revoke Lin's master degree and thesis.
Taipei City Councilwoman Wang Hung-wei, who reported the plagiarism incident to NTU, stated that Lin should withdraw his campaign, and President Tsai Ing-wen should apologize to the people.