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One of the top stories from this past week was that Taiwan’s military held non-stop war games which began early on Monday morning, and lasted through the week. The exercises were bigger in scale than in previous years with 30 government agencies participating in the simulated attacks.
President Ma Ying-jeou, and other high-ranking officials visited the national command center on Tuesday morning to inspect Taiwan’s contingency plans for cyber-attacks.
The National Security Council (NSC) said the purpose of this year’s games was to strengthen Taiwan’s national security and to deal with cyber-attacks on government agencies.
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Also this past week, China held live-fire military drills of its own, beginning on Friday. That coincided with the last day of Taiwan’s most important annual war games—the Han Kuang series of military exercises.
In Taiwan, defense ministry spokesman David Lo said on Thursday that the Chinese drills were not a cause for concern. He said that the drills were not targeting Taiwan, so the public had no reason to worry.
China sees Taiwan as part of its territory, even though the two sides have been ruled separately for more than 60 years. Beijing has also threatened to bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary.
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And finally, this past week, Taiwan is planning to ban the use of trans fats, by 2018 at the earliest. That was the word from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday.
The plan is in line with Washington’s move to prohibit the use of the fatty acids in three year’s time.
According to a draft bill in Taiwan, violators could face a fine of up to NT$3 million (US$100,000).