Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan should regulate TikTok

Roger Wu 吳哲文

As next year’s presidential election gets closer, there are increasing concerns in Taiwan regarding the issue of election interference by China.

Short-video sharing apps on mobile devices have become all the rage recently, and one of the most popular of these is Douyin and its international version TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd.

TikTok has 4 million users in Taiwan alone, and people in the 18 to 24 age range account for 40 percent. These users regard TikTok as a source of news, information and entertainment, with other Chinese apps like Xiaohongshu becoming main amusement sources in people’s daily lives.

Suspicious mail sent from China

Taipei Times

A suspicious package that had been sent from Taiwan to a South Korean care home was found to have originated in China, the Taipei Mission in Korea said on Friday.

Based on information provided by Taiwan’s Customs Administration, the package was confirmed to have been sent from China and transshipped to South Korea by Taiwan’s state-run postal service Chunghwa Post Co, the mission said in a statement.

The Taipei mission said it will continue to work with South Korean authorities on the matter and share the results of the probe with the police and other agencies in the country.

Ko’s categorization is ridiculous

Chuang Sheng-rong 莊勝榮

In the book The White Power, written by Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder, Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and published in 2014, students are categorized into seven tiers.

Medical students belong to the first tier, followed by engineering (second), business school (third), law school (fourth), agriculture (fifth), and humanities and the social sciences (sixth). Students at art schools are not included at all. Perhaps they are considered the seventh tier.

Five detained over China spy network

Taipei Times

A diabolo instructor, Lu Chi-hsien (魯紀賢), and four retired military personnel were yesterday detained after a court hearing on suspicion of forming a spy network for China.

The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, along with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) and New Taipei City police, on Wednesday conducted 25 searches, including six at military units, questioned seven suspects and interviewed 11 witnesses.

The five are suspected of “contacting, enticing and recruiting” military personnel from April last year to obtain military intelligence in contravention of the National Security Act (國家安全法), Taipei Deputy Head Prosecutor Tsai Wei-yi (蔡偉逸) said.

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