Taiwan Weekly is a newsletter released every week by Fair Winds Foundation, Association of Foreign Relations and Taipei Forum that provides coverage and perspectives into the latest developments in Taiwan.
An initial draft of the Cabinet's Fiscal Year 2024 Central Government Budget has earmarked NT$440 billion (US$13 billion) for national defense, an increase of NT$30 billion (US$ 944 million) from this year's budget.
DetailsJuly 30: Speaker Hsieh Tien-lin of the Changhua County Council, the most prominent local speaker supporting Terry Gou, announced his departure from the Kuomintang (KMT), becoming the second speaker to quit the party after Speaker He Sheng-feng of the Nantou County Council. Gou left a message on Hsieh's Facebook to pay his respects. According to Gou, while Hsieh's party membership may no longer exist, his party spirit will last forever. Only when the opposition unites and integrates successfully will it win the presidential and legislative elections and bring the Republic of China from the brink of war to the right track of peace.
DetailsAfter the Kuomintang's (KMT) National Congress successfully eliminated internal dissents that demanded replacing the party candidate for the next presidential elections, Chairman Eric Chu for the first time shouted out the campaign slogan of forming a "grand coalition for governing."
DetailsThe Han Kuang military exercises' live-fire drills have always provided a glimpse into Taiwan's military preparedness and strategic considerations for both domestic and international observers.
DetailsAs a new U.S. semiconductor ban against China looms, American semiconductor companies have issued statements opposing such a ban.
DetailsJuly 25: The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced that it will spend NT$90 billion (about US$2.86 billion) to build an advanced packaging plant in the Tongluo Science Park, a branch of the Hsinchu Science Park. Sources indicate that this move is to cooperate with heavyweight customers including Advanced Micro Devices, NVIDIA, Apple, and Xilinx, to provide back-end advanced packaging for advanced logic chip manufacturing processes so that production capacity can be sustained to ensure advanced process chip production plans for the Kaohsiung 2nm plant and Longtan 1.4nm plant can be executed and the Tainan Science Park 3nm plant expanded.
DetailsVice President William Lai is scheduled to lead a delegation to visit Paraguay next month.
DetailsThe Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) construction delay of its Arizona wafer fab has presented a serious challenge to the United States since it sees the fab as a metric for its return to the local production of semiconductors.
DetailsAmidst the ongoing #MeToo movement, the Executive Yuan has unexpectedly introduced a draft amendment to the "Gender Equity Education Act."
DetailsJuly 17: Vice President William Lai will serve as a special envoy to attend the presidential inauguration of Santiago Peña in Paraguay. Mr. Lai's expected transit stop in the United States has attracted scrutiny. Xie Feng, mainland China's ambassador to the United States, stated that Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations and that the presumptuous behavior of Taiwan independence activists should be stopped. The top priority is to resolutely block Mr. Lai's visit to the United States, Feng added.
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