This Week in Taiwan 1205-1211
December 6: The domestic violence case involving Legislator Kao Chia-yu as the victim accidentally triggered a "national-level" cyber-army chaos. Chairman Eric Chu of the Kuomintang (KMT) called upon the Legislative Yuan for strong oversight, including cutting all government funding for maintaining cyber-armies. According to Chu, the incident allowed the public to see in-fighting within the ruling Democratic Progressive party (DPP), including maintaining cyber-armies for power struggles. These are dark forces which seriously threaten Taiwan.
December 7: The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, announced that the November consumer price index (CPI) growth rate reached 2.8 percent, the sixth time this year that inflation broke the 2 percent line, setting a record increase in nearly nine years. Dining prices, closely connected to the people's livelihood, increased 1.65 percent, a new high in 2.5 years, indicating that Taiwan is under great inflationary pressure.
December 7: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the United States will take all diplomatic and deterrence actions to ensure that China cannot take Taiwan by military force and defend the Ukraine from Russian invasion.
December 8: A man suspected of shooting in Xindian District, New Taipei, absconded to mainland China for 16 days. The Criminal Investigation Bureau, National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior sent officers to Xiamen Airport to receive the suspect from mainland police, deporting him back to Taiwan. This is the first successful case of mutual criminal judicial assistance cooperation since the mechanism ceased to operate in recent years.
December 9: The Chinese word "zhai" (literally indoors or sedentary) was selected as Taiwan's representative word of 2021, coming out first among 36 candidates. As the pandemic continues to show its strength, many have stayed home and spent much of the year indoors.
December 10: President Joe Biden of the United States hosted a "Democracy Summit" by video conference. Minister without Portfolio Audrey Tang delivered a "national statement," emphasizing that Taiwan has always stood firmly at the forefront of the global fight against authoritarianism and will never bow to authoritarian forces.
December 11: A female research assistant of the P3 laboratory of the Academia Sinica was diagnosed positive with the coronavirus (COVID-19), breaking the streak of 35 consecutive days of zero cases. The patient's gene sequence is consistent with the Delta variant used in the P3 laboratory, so it was confirmed to be a laboratory infection. The coronavirus was detected on desktops and doorknobs in he laboratory, but the quantity of virus is currently low. The researcher was previously bitten by lab rats twice, once in October and another time in November. According to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), it was preliminarily confirmed that rat bites did not cause the infection.