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MANILA, Philippines - Taiwan has earmarked $110 million for the construction of a pier on Spratlys' Taiping Island, which the Philippines has also laid claims, set to be completed by 2015. The new project can hold frigates, radar-evading corvettes and Taiwanese Navy's Kuang Hua VI-class missile boats, according to reports by Taiwanese media on Monday. Taiping, largest among the Spratlys Islands in the disputed South China Sea, is the only territory that has fresh water. It has been administered by the Taiwanese government officially since the 1970s. Taiwan has long used the potentially oil-rich island as an arsenal with an...

Sometimes, small is everything. In Taipei’s exceptional National Palace Museum, I chanced on a case containing a carved olive kernel. It was an unlikely exhibit, the kind that had people tilting their heads one way, then the other, before peering in closer. Shaped by the evidently steady hands of a master craftsman more than 250 years ago, it portrays a miniature boat, complete with exquisite awning, passengers and rigging. For a tiny piece of fruit matter it is a near-miraculous piece of art. The sculpture was created for the Chinese emperor of the day and, like so much in the...

TAIPEI -- Taiwanese tennis star Hsieh Su-wei has reached a preliminary agreement with Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Co. (TTLC) to endorse Taiwan Beer. The deal, which will reportedly pay Hsieh NT$5 million (US$167,712) a year, could be signed by the end of the month at the earliest, TTLC Chairman Hsu An-hsuan said Tuesday. Under the agreement, Hsieh will wear the Taiwan Beer logo during her matches and shoot commercials pitching the product. Hsieh's visibility skyrocketed after she became the first Taiwanese to win a Grand Slam tennis title when she and partner Peng Shuai of China won the women's doubles...

TAIpei: Taiwan’s exports grew nearly four times faster than expected in June, boosted by brisk electronics shipments and sales to China and Japan, but analysts cautioned that momentum might not sustain.

Rejecting the term “Taiwan” as the nation’s name, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) said yesterday that Taiwan is not an independent, sovereign nation and that unification between Taiwan and China would eventually happen. The assertions “Taiwan is already an independent country named the Republic of China (ROC)” and “the ROC is Taiwan” are both forms of “self-depreciation,” Hau said when addressing a forum organized by the government-funded Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD). Hau said this kind of rhetoric was a “politically motivated tactic” aimed at “fooling voters.” “They represented a step backward for democracy and have become major obstacles to...

The legislature yesterday voted in favor of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proposal for a 12-year national education program, despite President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledges that senior-high schools and vocational education would be entirely tuition-free from beginning next year, and that all students would be admitted to such schools without entrance examinations. Under the Senior Secondary Education Act (高級中等教育法) and the amendment to the Junior College Act (專科學校法) passed by the legislature yesterday, an economic threshold will be set to exclude students from more well-off households from tuition support if they opt to study at certain senior-high schools. The laws...

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Tycoon Terry Gou yesterday said that Taiwan's finance policies enacted in the last decade are extremely out of touch, describing those finance ministers with diplomas from “fancy U.S. business schools” as living on another planet. Gou, the chairman of Hon Hai Precision, the world's largest contract electronics maker, was speaking at the company's annual general shareholders' meeting. Asked after the meeting about the annulment of the stock gains tax from transactions, Gou gave some candid comments about the financial policies promulgated by Taiwan over the past decade, ranging from earlier stock bonus taxes to the recent stock...

Like many of its neighbours, Taiwan is struggling to deal with increasing welfare obligations as its population ages. By the year 2025, the island state estimates one in five of its people will be elderly. Taiwan's economy has been struggling in recent years - even as China powers ahead - and more people have fallen on hard times. Little has changed in some of the more historical parts of Taipei. Rent is relatively cheap, which makes it more affordable for those Taiwanese struggling financially. Pastor Chen Yuhua provides an outreach program at the Faith Church of Nazareth. "There are more...

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Citing the impending end of quantitative easing measures in the U.S. and the lagging economic performances of Europe, China, and Japan, Hon Hai Group Chairman Terry Gou said yesterday that he sees no signs of an economic recovery. Gou attributed the gradual economic recovery in the U.S. to three factors: the loosening of monetary policy, the transition toward electronic commerce and the development of shale oil production Funds rendered available during the period of loosened monetary policy led to the recovery from the real estate bubble crisis, while the transition toward electronic commerce helped maintain consumption habits,...

TAIPEI — Fighting broke out in Taiwan’s parliament Tuesday as legislators scuffled and threw coffee during a debate on whether a controversial capital gains tax on share trading should be revised less than a year after it was brought in. Discussions were brought to a virtual standstill after dozens of lawmakers from the ruling Kuomintang party clashed with opposition legislators as both groups tried to seize the chamber’s podium. TV images broadcast live nationwide showed two angry women legislators scuffling and an opposition parliamentarian spraying coffee at her Kuomintang counterparts. A female legislator from the Kuomintang was also seen bursting...

The island state already has a widespread network of free Wi-Fi access points available to its citizens. Now it has opened up the service to visitors from overseas, the travel news website Skift reports. The government-backed iTaiwan scheme launched two years ago, and now has more than 4,000 hotspots dotted around the island, including the main tourist attractions, transport hubs and government buildings.