Chinese agencies handling Taiwan affairs are reported to have approached the family of TWICE member Tzuyu, a move seen as a sign that united front tactics are shifting toward inducement, and as bad news for Taiwan's cultural industries and its performers.
Tzuyu's management contract with JYP is due to expire, and China is reported to be using the lure of its vast entertainment market to press her to declare support for "One China."
The united front model has changed from "punishment for not taking a stance" a decade ago to "market access, drama roles and endorsements for those who do."
Chinese authorities need not issue orders directly: agencies, platforms and producers censor themselves to stay clear of the red lines.
Shortly after Lin Chi-ling took up a board position at TAICCA, she was dropped from Chinese drama and variety programmes.
Taiwan's Ministry of Culture budget was cut by NT$1 billion this year by the Legislative Yuan, with nearly NT$400 million frozen; PTS, TaiwanPlus and TAICCA were hit hardest.
Outlook: With domestic cultural resources shrinking, the pressure on performers facing the inducements of the Chinese market is only expected to grow.
Taiwan's November local elections are now open for candidate registration, and the first names are already on the books in Yunlin — a routine but telling start to the race.
Registration for the nine-in-one local elections opened August 31 and runs through September 4, with voting set for November 28.
Lawyer Wu Ping-hui signed up to run for Yunlin County magistrate, after losing a bid for Tainan mayor in 2022 and earlier runs for legislature and a Huwei township by-election.
County councillor candidate Chen Yi-chen was first in line, waiting outside the election office before 7am to file for re-election.
The KMT's pick for Douliu city mayor, Huang Yu-mei, registered with the local party chief and dozens of supporters in tow.
Yunlin alone will fill 686 seats, from magistrate and councillors down to village heads.
Outlook: More candidates will file over the next few days, and the shape of the Yunlin magistrate race should be clear once the registration window closes.
A contract researcher at Taiwan's health ministry has been charged with selling government information to China for small monthly payments, widening an existing espionage case and raising fresh worries about how easily Beijing buys access inside Taiwan's bureaucracy.
Prosecutors want a 12-year sentence for the woman, who allegedly photographed internal documents with her phone and passed them to Chinese contacts.
She collected journalist lists and political dirt from inside government offices, reportedly for about 5,000 Taiwan dollars a month.
She also acted as a money middleman, moving payments to Taiwanese soldiers recruited by China.
The case grew out of the prosecution of former TV news anchor Lin Chen-yu, known as "Ma De."
The ministry says her actual job was routine paperwork on grant applications with no access to classified files, and that a family member handled her resignation in May while she was in custody.
Outlook: Taiwan is tightening vetting for contract staff, and the spy case looks likely to widen further as prosecutors keep pulling on the same thread.
Candidate registration for Taiwan's year-end local elections has opened, and Kuo Hsi, chairman of the Taiwan Mahjong Biggest Party, was first in line to register a bid for Taipei mayor, opening fire on the candidates of both major parties.
Kuo Hsi is the first person to register as a candidate for Taipei mayor, campaigning on a "genuinely anti-communist" platform.
He singled out incumbent mayor Chiang Wan-an as having departed from Chiang Ching-kuo's anti-communist stance, and questioned his surname.
He also criticised legislators Fu Kun-chi, Wang Hong-wei and Yeh Yuan-chih as being close to the Chinese Communist Party.
Of Puma Shen, the Democratic Progressive Party's drafted candidate, he said he is a good person but lacks political sensitivity and is not suited to politics.
He is campaigning on his record of running seven companies, arguing that governing a city and running a business follow the same principles.
Outlook: The Taipei mayoral race is set to become a three-way contest between the Kuomintang, the DPP and smaller parties, with anti-communist credentials and candidates' qualifications the main points of attack and defence going forward.
Taiwan's military is under pressure to swap its decades-old towed artillery for modern truck-mounted guns — bad news for the current arsenal, but a push toward a more survivable force.
The Swedish-made Archer system can roll up, fire, and drive away in about 20 seconds, making it very hard to hit back.
Taiwan still leans on old, slow-moving artillery that has to stay in place, an easy target for Chinese missiles and drones.
Speed matters most on a small island where there is nowhere to retreat and counter-fire arrives fast.
Ukraine has already shown that shoot-and-move guns survive while fixed positions get destroyed.
Outlook: Expect continued pressure on Taipei to buy or build fast, mobile artillery as the threat from China grows.
The Taiwan People's Party is making a push for a foothold in Taichung's city council, a modest but real test of whether the party can hold ground outside Taipei.
Party chair Huang Kuo-chang joined six TPP candidates as they registered for Taichung city council seats on the first day of registration.
The stated goal is to win all six races and form an official TPP caucus in the council, which would give the party formal standing in local politics.
The six candidates are spread across separate districts, including Qingshui, Fengyuan, Xitun, Beitun, Taiping and Dali, so the party is spreading its bet rather than concentrating it.
One of the six already holds a council seat, so the party is defending an incumbent while trying to add five newcomers.
Outlook: The party is positioning itself as an independent third force heading into the local elections, and whether it clears the caucus threshold in Taichung will be an early read on its strength beyond the capital.
A new alliance of Taiwan's smaller opposition parties is making a push into New Taipei City, aiming to win enough seats to form its own caucus — a long-shot bid in one of the toughest areas for third parties.
Four candidates registered to run for the New Taipei City Council under the Taiwan Forward Front banner, covering Xinzhuang, Sanchong-Luzhou, Xindian and Xizhi areas.
The group is a joint effort by the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, New Power Party, Green Party and the Obasan Alliance, with New Power Party chair Claire Wang leading the launch.
The stated goal is a formal caucus in the council that will act as a watchdog regardless of whether the next mayor is from the KMT or the DPP.
The pitch targets New Taipei's heavy influence from construction and property developers, which they say drowns out ordinary residents.
Criticism of current mayor Hou Yu-ih focused on traffic, housing, childcare and climate planning — more fines and enforcement, they argue, but poor roads and land handed to big business.
Outlook: The vote comes at year's end, and clearing the bar for a caucus in Taiwan's most populous city would be a real breakthrough for the island's third-party bloc.
Taiwan's ruling DPP kicked off its Tainan city council campaign with two newcomers registering on day one, a show of confidence for the party's hold on the local assembly.
Lai Mao-ching and Shen Chen-nan, both longtime aides to sitting politicians, signed up first for the Tainan council race.
Legislators Kuo Kuo-wen and Lai Hui-yuan backed them jointly, reviving an alliance whose nickname sounds like "we'll win" in Taiwanese.
Several incumbents registered alongside them, framing the early filing as a sign of momentum.
The two seats matter because the DPP needs them to keep its majority in the Tainan council.
Outlook: Expect a hard fight for these districts as the local elections approach, with the DPP's Tainan majority the real prize.
A record-strength El Niño is forming, and Barclays expects it to push food and industrial raw material prices sharply higher over the next year and a half — bad news for anyone worried about inflation, good for commodity investors.
Palm oil, coconut oil and natural rubber could jump 30-40% within 18 months because their growing areas are packed into Southeast Asia.
The El Niño reading in the tropical Pacific may peak near the end of 2026 at a level about 15% stronger than the record 2015-16 event.
Coffee could rise 20-30% and rice 10-20% as drought and water shortages hit Southeast Asia and parts of Central America.
The damage spreads past farming: copper and aluminium may gain up to 20% and thermal coal 20-40%, since drought cuts hydro power, raises electricity costs and disrupts mines and ports.
Commodity markets are already moving — a broad commodity index is up more than 22% since late June, and former Goldman strategist Jeff Currie says the era of abundance is likely over.
Outlook: If the forecasts hold, food and raw material costs climb through 2027, feeding back into inflation just as central banks hoped it was under control.
Taiwan's defense ministry says China's military pressure on the island is as heavy as ever, with drills now built around cutting off Taiwan's sea and air routes — bad news for Taiwan's security and for shipping through the region.
China's recent drills near Taiwan focus on blockading the island's links to the outside world.
Warplanes, navy ships, coast guard vessels and maritime militia are all used together to practice encirclement.
Exercises run around the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the western Pacific, treated as rehearsals for real combat.
Beijing is also stealing and leaking Taiwanese military information and pushing false stories online to weaken public trust.
Taiwan says it is boosting defenses, protecting key sites, improving reserve call-up plans and working more closely with friendly countries.
Outlook: The pressure is set to continue, with Taiwan's new defense budget and five-year force build-up plan now heading through parliament.
Taiwan's military is reshuffling its spending priorities as pressure from China grows, shifting money toward urgent needs and pushing back everything else.
Taiwan's defence ministry sent its 2027 budget and a five-year military buildup plan to parliament, along with a report on Chinese military strength.
Every past spending item is being reviewed, and anything not urgent gets delayed so money goes to the most pressing needs first.
China's grey-zone pressure — constant plane and ship incursions, coast guard patrols, sea militia, legal and information warfare, and economic squeezing — is described as worse than before, aimed at treating the Taiwan Strait as Chinese waters.
The worry is that Beijing can turn a drill into a real attack with little warning, so buying leans toward drones, attack boats, anti-drone gear, air defence missiles, night-fighting equipment and backup fibre-optic communications around the island.
Lessons from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are shaping the shopping list, alongside US purchases including HIMARS rocket launchers, self-propelled artillery and loitering attack drones.
Outlook: Expect Taiwan's spending to keep tilting toward cheap, fast-strike weapons and resilient communications, with older equipment retired and slower programmes pushed further out.
Four candidates from a Taipei city council alliance signed up for the 2026 local elections, pitching youth welfare, elder care, and development oversight in a bid that mixes incumbents with first-time runners.
Sitting councillors Lin Yen-feng and Yen Jo-fang registered together with newcomers Liu Pin-hsin and Kuo Fan under the "Taipei Good Governance" banner.
Lin promised four more years of watching over big land projects — the Beitou-Shilin tech park, Sheji Island, and the Guandu plain — whoever ends up as mayor.
Yen is running on help for young people, seniors, and the poor, arguing Taipei is now a very old city that needs the generations to get along.
Liu is campaigning on culture, safer streets, and a city that works for every age group.
Kuo brought his black poodle to the registration and teased a package of pet policies, with a slogan about being local and global at once.
Outlook: The slate now moves into full campaign mode ahead of the local vote, with development projects and welfare spending as its main lines of attack.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen has sent core aides to China to attend the Taiwan Excellence Fair, and the Democratic Progressive Party caucus in the city council has questioned whether this is paving the way for her future cross-strait line, putting pressure on the KMT's cross-strait position.
Lu Shiow-yen approved sending Deputy Mayors Cheng Chao-hsin and Chen Hsueh-sheng, along with Economic Development Bureau Director-General Chang Feng-yuan, to Dongguan for the fair.
The DPP says the organisers include Taiwan-affairs units of Chinese local governments, and the city government must state clearly which officials it met.
The DPP has demanded that, once the delegation returns to Taiwan, it disclose the full itinerary, the people it met and the content of the talks, and submit to council oversight.
Chiang Chi-chen, who is running to succeed Lu as Taichung mayor, has been asked to state whether he knew in advance and whether he endorses this political judgement.
The DPP has also aimed its criticism at the KMT's stance on defence self-sufficiency, drone policy and the related budgets.
Outlook: The trip will become a focal point in the battle over cross-strait policy in the Taichung mayoral race, and Lu Shiow-yen and Chiang Chi-chen are certain to face persistent questioning.
Ko Wen-je acknowledged that the Taiwan People's Party has struggled to build support in southern Taiwan and publicly appealed to the Kuomintang's Hsieh Lung-chieh for help, indicating that blue-white cooperation is a necessity rather than a choice for the TPP.
The TPP's Tainan candidates registered as a group, including four city council candidates and one village chief candidate.
Ko Wen-je said bluntly that the TPP holds only one incumbent council seat south of the Zhuoshui River, that making inroads there has been an uphill effort, and that it needs Hsieh Lung-chieh to campaign on its behalf.
The collapse of blue-white cooperation in the Zhubei mayoral race is seen as "the tip of the iceberg," with the KMT taking a cool stance and the two sides lacking any coordination mechanism.
Ko Wen-je said that if the TPP cannot grow in this year's elections, Taiwanese politics will be left with nothing but a "contest of who is worse," with opposition parties unable to hold the ruling party to account.
Former legislator Li Chen-hsiu, originally a citizen of mainland China, has announced a run for mayor of Zhubei; Ko Wen-je called on the Central Election Commission and the Mainland Affairs Council to clarify the standards governing the political participation rights of spouses from mainland China.
Outlook: Coordination between the blue and white camps in the local elections is likely to remain stalled, and whether the TPP can break out of its single-seat predicament in the south will be a key indicator in this year's campaign.
Registration for Taiwan's 2026 local elections opened on its first day, with the Democratic Progressive Party fielding a joint push by seven candidates in New Taipei, aiming to secure a majority in the city council — positive news for the party's governing plans in New Taipei.
The Cheng Kuo Faction, a faction within the DPP, put forward seven candidates for the New Taipei City Council, including three incumbent councillors and four newcomers, who went together to the election commission to collect registration forms in a show of momentum.
The goal is to give the DPP a majority of seats in the New Taipei City Council, providing backing for the party's mayoral candidate, Su Chiao-hui.
Most of the four newcomers have backgrounds as political aides or in local constituency service, and two of them are the children of a sitting councillor and a sitting legislator.
The constituencies cover densely populated areas of New Taipei including Banqiao, Xinzhuang, Sanchong-Luzhou, Xindian, and Tucheng-Shulin-Yingge.
Outlook: The DPP's New Taipei team will hold a joint mayoral and council candidate registration press conference on Wednesday this week, formally moving the campaign into its mobilisation phase.
The planned KMT–TPP joint ticket in Zhubei has collapsed, a setback for Taiwan's opposition parties hoping to unseat the ruling DPP.
The Taiwan People's Party said its cooperation deal with the KMT for the Zhubei mayor race has fallen apart.
Former TPP lawmaker Li Chen-hsiu, who just registered to run for Zhubei mayor, said the infighting is damaging her own party and questioned its leadership.
TPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang accused the KMT of breaking its word; KMT chair Cheng Li-wun said the two sides simply read the local race differently.
Li urged both camps to calm their supporters and refocus on beating the DPP, arguing there is no 2028 win without a strong 2026.
Outlook: Expect more public friction between the two opposition parties as candidate registration closes and other local races test whether the alliance holds.
TSMC expects light-based chip technology to take over data center networking within two years, a bullish signal for Taiwan's chip supply chain and for AI hardware demand.
Silicon photonics — moving data with light instead of copper wires — should hold more than half the optical transceiver market by 2027.
AI is the driver: transceiver sales grew 25% in 2025 and are expected to grow 50% again in 2026, as the computing unit becomes the whole data center rather than one server.
Doubts about co-packaged optics, which puts the light engine right next to the chip, are fading, and makers are starting mass production in the second half of this year.
Taiwan's chipmaking base can build these light engines at scale, but lasers, fiber, connectors, and testing are still bottlenecks.
A new silicon photonics industry alliance aims to link design, local manufacturing, and global buyers to clear those bottlenecks.
Outlook: Expect a fast ramp in co-packaged optics orders through 2026 and 2028, with Taiwan's supply chain the main beneficiary if the non-chip pieces keep up.
Taiwan's spy scandal around former TV news anchor Lin Chen-yu has grown, with a health ministry staffer now facing a 12-year prison request — a sign Beijing's recruiting reaches deeper into Taiwan's bureaucracy than first thought.
A contract researcher at Taiwan's health ministry has been charged with photographing secret official documents and sending them to a Chinese contact over Telegram.
The payoff was small — a monthly retainer plus task fees for things like handing over lists of reporters and digging up dirt on the government.
Prosecutors say part of the money came from Lin Chen-yu, the ex-anchor at the center of the case, and was routed through other people's bank accounts to hide the trail.
The same money pipeline allegedly paid off military personnel, tying the civilian and military ends of the network together.
Charges span national security law, corruption, and money laundering; the accused stays in custody pending trial.
Outlook: More arrests are likely as prosecutors trace the payment network, and Taiwan will face fresh pressure to tighten vetting of contract government staff.
Taiwan has charged a government contract researcher with leaking official documents and laundering money for a hostile foreign group, in a case prosecutors say shows Beijing's growing reach inside the island's civil service.
A contract researcher at Taiwan's health ministry is accused of passing secret official papers to a foreign handler she met online.
She was allegedly paid a small monthly sum to hand over a list of Taiwanese journalists, move money, and dig up dirt on the government.
Prosecutors say she used other people's bank accounts to funnel foreign money onward, some of it used to bribe two military officers.
The case grew out of the spying investigation into Lin Chen-yu, a reporter at broadcaster CTi, whose account was used to send her part of the money.
Prosecutors are asking the court for a 12-year sentence and say she will stay in custody during trial.
Outlook: Taiwan is expected to keep widening these investigations as recruitment of civil servants through online contacts and cash offers becomes a bigger national security worry.
A four-term Changhua county councillor has jumped into the race for county chief as an independent, shaking up a swing county that both major parties treat as up for grabs.
Chen Chung-chia, a councillor since 2010, registered to run for Changhua county chief with no party backing.
He is the son of two former lawmakers — Chen Chao-jung and Yu Yueh-hsia — but says he told neither parent before signing up.
His pitch is that the KMT, the DPP and the TPP all picked candidates to serve their own party interests rather than Changhua.
He briefly joined the TPP to run for this job, quit in late 2023 when the party would not back him, and is now going it alone.
He is urging voters with no preferred candidate to still turn out and spoil their ballots as a protest.
Outlook: A well-known independent splitting the field makes Changhua one of the harder local races to call in the coming election.
TSMC says the next wave of AI spending will go to whole integrated computing systems rather than faster individual chips, a positive signal for chipmakers and data center suppliers.
The winners in AI will be companies that build the most integrated systems, not those with the best models.
Demand for AI "inference" — models actually answering requests and running tasks — has exploded since 2022 and now drives most of the growth in system size.
Moving data around eats up much of a system's work, leaving costly AI chips idle a lot of the time.
TSMC is pushing 3D chip stacking, advanced packaging, optical links and faster memory to clear those bottlenecks.
AI chip packages could hold more than a trillion transistors by 2030, forcing a shift to stitching many chips together.
Outlook: Spending should keep shifting toward full data center systems — power, memory, and interconnects included — with TSMC positioning itself as a partner across that whole chain rather than just a wafer supplier.
China has rewritten its national defense mobilization law to let it flip the country from peacetime to wartime footing quickly, a clear negative for Taiwan's security outlook.
The revised law takes effect October 1 and for the first time spells out what "national defense mobilization" means.
It lets Beijing turn economic and social resources into military power to defend claims over sovereignty, unification, and territory.
Taiwan's ruling DPP calls China its biggest threat and says defense is no longer just the defense ministry's job.
The party wants a broader push: building up the military, more asymmetric weapons, and getting ordinary people more aware of security threats.
Separately, DPP lawmakers voiced embarrassment over reports of widespread vote-buying in Hualien noticed by foreign journalists based in Taiwan.
Outlook: Expect Taipei to lean harder into civil defense and asymmetric weapons as the new Chinese law kicks in this autumn.
A Taichung city delegation heading to China has become a political flashpoint, putting pressure on mayor Lu Shiow-yen as a likely 2028 presidential contender.
Taichung's deputy mayor Cheng Chao-hsin will lead a delegation to a Taiwan products expo in Dongguan, China in early September.
Opposition DPP councillors say the trip looks like groundwork for Lu Shiow-yen's future China policy, not just help for Taiwanese businesses.
The expo's organisers include Chinese local government bodies that handle Taiwan affairs, which is why the guest list is drawing scrutiny.
City officials insist it is a routine business event and that other Taiwanese cities are sending people too.
One councillor handed the deputy mayor a cap stitched with Taiwan's flag and told him to wear it in China.
Outlook: Expect the trip and anything said during it to be read as an early signal of where Lu Shiow-yen would stand on China if she runs in 2028.
Talks between the Taiwan People's Party and the Kuomintang on cooperation in Zhubei have broken down, casting a shadow over third-force plans for the year-end elections.
While campaigning in Tainan, Ko Wen-je complained that the KMT was passing the blame back and forth over the collapse in Zhubei, with no one willing to step forward and take responsibility.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun said the party would meet the elections with a broader vision and could not handle the matter, prompting Ko Wen-je to ask just who he is supposed to talk to.
The TPP stressed that Huang Kuo-chang keeps his word and will not field a candidate in Zhubei, laying the blame for the collapse on the other side.
The TPP holds only one council seat south of the Zhuoshui River, and this time it has nominated four candidates for the Tainan City Council in a bid to build a grassroots base.
Former TPP legislator Li Chen-hsiu has entered the race for Zhubei mayor, and Ko Wen-je called on the central government to state clearly whether Chinese spouses have the right to take part in politics.
Outlook: If the rift in KMT-TPP cooperation spreads to Changhua and other constituencies, the room for coordination in the year-end local elections will shrink further.
The budget battle in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan has escalated once again — bad news for the KMT's image, and damaging for the local governments and sheltered workshops caught in the crossfire.
KMT legislator Weng Hsiao-ling proposed cutting and freezing the entirety of the Presidential Office's state affairs fund, leaving sheltered workshops across Taiwan without orders.
She has yet to admit any fault, and has declared that she intends to make deep cuts to the central government's general budget next year.
DPP caucus whip Chuang Jui-hsiung sarcastically called her the KMT's "newly shining star," saying even the party chair feels threatened.
The pain of the budget cuts has instead fallen on the blue camp's own people, with Chiang Wan-an, Cheng Li-wun and the Taichung City Government all having to dig into their own pockets to make up for the lost orders.
Chuang Jui-hsiung said the KMT's biggest problem is that whenever an individual legislator puts forward a proposal, the entire party backs it blindly, with one controversy after another accumulating into the party's culture.
Outlook: The review of next year's central government general budget could see another round of large-scale conflict over cuts and freezes, with voters ultimately passing judgment on the outcome.
Taiwan lens maker Genius Electronic Optical jumped to its daily limit and broke past NT$1,000 a share for the first time, a win for holders but a sign of froth for anyone chasing it now.
The stock hit its limit-up price and set an all-time high, with volume topping 10,000 lots.
Big institutional money piled in on Friday — foreign investors, local funds, and dealers all bought.
Optical makers are racing into co-packaged optics for AI data centers, and Genius is sampling key parts to customers, with mass production expected around 2027-2028.
Apple's new iPhone launch in early September should lift lens orders too.
Day traders made up over half of Friday's volume, a warning that the move could swing hard both ways.
Outlook: The rally has momentum from AI optics and the iPhone cycle, but heavy day-trading means sharp pullbacks are likely.
Negotiations between Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) over a joint candidate for Zhubei mayor have broken down, with each party now fielding its own candidate — a negative development for the mood of cooperation between them.
TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang said the KMT had unilaterally broken the agreement and expressed regret, but stressed that the TPP keeps its word.
He said several KMT legislators had called him of their own accord, offering to appear in Zhubei to campaign for TPP candidate Chiu Chen-yuan.
Huang hopes the impact of the collapse will be confined to Hsinchu County and will not spread to the mayoral races in New Taipei and Taichung.
He named names, saying that if Hsu Hsin-ying fails to keep her promise, the KMT's Lee Szu-chuan and Chiang Chi-chen should not be dragged down with her.
Responding to Ko Wen-je's call for the negotiation process to be spelled out clearly, he said he had spent recent days explaining it to the public and to supporters.
Outlook: KMT-TPP cooperation will be hard to repair in the short term, and the question now is whether the fallout can really be kept within Hsinchu County or will spill over into races in other cities and counties.
Taiwan and the US are expanding their chip partnership into education and worker training, a positive sign for both countries' semiconductor industries.
The American Institute in Taiwan held a semiconductor workforce summit in Taipei just before the SEMICON Taiwan trade show opens.
AIT director Raymond Greene called Taiwan-US ties stronger than ever, crediting Taiwan's chip plants in Arizona and Texas with helping America rebuild its factory base.
Around 150 leaders from government, industry, and universities on both sides joined to link school programs directly to what chipmakers actually need.
New money is flowing into exchanges: a $20 million gift to the University of Arizona for study abroad, plus extra Fulbright semiconductor scholarships sending US graduate students to Taiwan.
Taiwan's education ministry framed talent, not technology alone, as the real limit on how far the partnership can go.
Outlook: Expect more agreements between Taiwanese and US universities and chip groups as both sides race to fill a growing shortage of skilled semiconductor workers.
The U.S. and Taiwan are deepening chip-industry ties through new student and training programs, a positive sign for both countries' semiconductor pipelines.
The U.S. announced new steps to build up chip-industry talent on both sides, including programs to send American students to Taiwan for high-tech study.
A $20 million private donation to the University of Arizona will fund study-abroad spots, potentially in Taiwan.
More graduate students will head to Taiwan in 2027 under a government-funded semiconductor scholarship program.
Taiwan's education ministry and U.S. industry groups signed an agreement to work more closely on training chip workers.
The push reflects how central Taiwan remains to the world's chip supply, and how badly the U.S. needs trained workers for its own new plants.
Outlook: Expect more university and industry tie-ups as both sides race to fill chip-factory jobs.
The US is putting money behind sending its students to Taiwan to study chips, a positive sign for both countries' tech workforce and for future cross-border investment.
AIT director Raymond Greene announced two programs to fund American students studying in Taiwan.
The University of Arizona received a $20 million gift to support study abroad, with Taiwan pushed as a destination.
Two Fulbright semiconductor scholarships will send US master's students to National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in 2027.
Taiwan's direct investment in the US hit a record last year, helping rebuild American manufacturing.
Education minister Cheng Ying-yao said the exchange runs both ways, giving Taiwanese students international exposure too.
Outlook: Expect more US-Taiwan deals on chip training and investment as trade and economic talks between the two continue.
Talks on a local-election alliance between Taiwan's two opposition parties have broken down in Zhubei City, Hsinchu County — bad news for both the KMT and the TPP heading into the year-end elections, and a possible unexpected gain for the ruling DPP.
The TPP says a three-way division of labour across the greater Hsinchu area had already been agreed, and that the KMT changed its position at the last minute, amounting to a "loss of integrity, penny wise and pound foolish."
TPP candidate Chiu Chen-yuan has confirmed he will stay in the race to the end and will not step aside.
Supporters' emotions have been inflamed, with talk emerging online of "casting a spoiled ballot rather than voting green if there is no white candidate."
The TPP is calling on Cheng Li-wun to come forward and explain, so as to prevent the fallout from spreading to New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Yilan and other counties and cities where the parties are cooperating.
Opposition cooperation at the Legislative Yuan level is unaffected for now, with the TPP stressing that it will judge each issue on its merits and will not blindly follow either side.
Outlook: If the KMT leadership does not step in to douse the flames, the breakdown could spread to other counties and cities, making opposition coordination for the year-end local elections even harder to negotiate.
Taiwan's local elections are 89 days out and the race is tightening, with New Taipei City emerging as the contest that could decide which party comes out ahead.
The ruling green camp is ahead in Changhua, Chiayi and Yilan, while New Taipei, Hsinchu and Taitung are dead even.
New Taipei is now seen as the single most important race of the cycle.
A front-page report that New Taipei's mayor Hou Yu-ih is backing his own party's candidate, Lee Si-chuan, signals how tense things are — that kind of endorsement is normally routine and would not be news.
The green camp is pushing hard into Taipei and the blue camp is going after Kaohsiung, each side's home turf, and losing one would likely cost a party chair their job.
Candidate registration formally opens this week.
Outlook: Expect the fight to center on New Taipei as registration begins and both parties throw resources at each other's strongholds.
The battle for Kaohsiung mayor has officially begun, and the first candidate to complete registration was neither the Democratic Progressive Party's Lai Jui-lung nor the Kuomintang's Ko Chih-en, but third-force candidate Chang Ching.
Registration for this year's year-end county magistrate, city mayor and councillor elections opened today, and Chang Ching was first in line for the Kaohsiung mayoral race early in the morning.
Chang Ching, 70, has served as a judge and a prosecutor and has practised as a lawyer for nearly 40 years. He is the current chairman of the Judicial Reform Party and announced his candidacy back in March.
Accompanying him at registration was Chang Chun-hung, a founding elder of the DPP; at the time of the Kaohsiung Incident, Chang Ching was Chang Chun-hung's defence lawyer.
Chang Ching is campaigning as an "iron-fist mayor," criticising the DPP for turning Taiwan into an autocracy in recent years and calling for a fresh start for democracy in Kaohsiung.
He pledged that barricades would no longer be set up around the city government, so that the people and the government are not kept apart.
Outlook: Lai Jui-lung and Ko Chih-en will complete their registrations in the days ahead, and the Kaohsiung race will settle into a blue-green showdown with a third force stirring the pot.
Taiwan's passive component leader Yageo crashed to its daily limit down even as chip capacitor prices are rising — bad news for retail investors who bought in last week.
Taiwan's market fell more than 800 points as the US-Iran war widened, dragging tech stocks down across the board.
Yageo dropped to its daily floor around mid-morning, trapping small investors who had just bought in days earlier.
The selloff came despite good news: Samsung's parts arm is raising prices on standard chip capacitors by 25-30%, with AI server-grade parts up 10-20%.
Rival Walsin Technology also hit limit down, though smaller passive component makers had been rising earlier in the day.
Foreign investors and local funds have been selling for days, while big traders bought heavily last Friday — a sign of a confused, short-term battle over shares.
Outlook: Demand for capacitors is still strong with factories running near full capacity, so the drop looks driven by war jitters and trading flows rather than the underlying business.
Chip packaging is shifting from copper wires to light, and TSMC says the first co-packaged optics products go into mass production in the second half of this year — good news for Taiwan's supply chain.
Silicon photonics has become the standard way to build optical transceivers, and should pass half the market by 2027.
Sales of optical transceivers grew 25% last year and are expected to grow 50% this year, driven by AI data centers.
Co-packaged optics — putting the light engine right next to the chip — is the end goal, and doubts about its reliability are fading as real-world data comes in.
The bottleneck is no longer the chip factories but the rest of the chain: lasers, fiber, connectors, and testing.
Taiwan is positioning itself as the full ecosystem, not just a place that makes wafers.
Outlook: AI buildouts are expected to drive another jump in demand around 2028, with the near-term test being whether the laser and fiber suppliers can keep up.
Taiwan's top IC substrate maker Unimicron is under a second round of searches by prosecutors over how it labels where its products are made — bad news for the company and a warning shot for the whole Taiwanese circuit-board industry.
Investigators returned to Unimicron's Taoyuan plant and took away computer files and engineers, days after a first search.
The case centres on possible false origin labelling, a criminal offence in Taiwan.
Unimicron says the disputed goods are ordinary circuit boards, not its flagship substrates, and that it is cooperating.
Taiwanese board makers routinely start production in China and finish the work in Taiwan, because Taiwan alone lacks enough capacity.
US bans on Chinese-made goods make that split production legally murky, and regulators have not said where the line is.
Outlook: More companies could be pulled in until Taiwan's authorities clarify whether finishing Chinese-made parts at home counts as "made in Taiwan."
On the first day of registration for Taipei City Council candidates, the Kuomintang was visibly nervous about the Taiwan People's Party's threat to take its votes — bad news for the blue camp's prospects.
Candidate registration for the nine-in-one local elections opened, with Taipei City Councillor Li Fang-ju the first blue-camp figure to sign up.
Chung Hsiao-ping admitted that pressure is high in the Zhongzheng-Wanhua constituency, where a group of candidates led by the TPP's Wu Yi-hsuan is going after blue-camp votes.
With too many pan-blue candidates running and too little to go around, blue-camp rivals in the same district are splitting the same pool of votes, leaving everyone feeling insecure.
Chung Hsiao-ping warned that if the TPP wins all six of its seats, the KMT's seat count could fall to 24 to 26, and it could also face a white-green alliance making a play for the speaker and deputy speaker posts.
He also criticised Ko Wen-je for undermining the KMT at every turn, calling on blue-camp supporters to concentrate their votes and avoid strategic vote-switching.
Outlook: The head-on clash between the blue and white camps in Taipei's city council districts will keep intensifying, and whether the KMT can hold its seat count depends on its ability to consolidate a scattered vote.
Taiwan pushed its case for closer US ties at a gathering of Midwestern state lawmakers, framing the two economies as partners rather than rivals — a positive signal for trade, though the backdrop is rising pressure from China.
Taiwan's top representative in Chicago, Lei Yen-feng, spoke to the executive committee of the Midwestern Legislative Conference at its annual meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The pitch: Taiwan became America's fourth-largest trading partner in 2025, and the two economies fill each other's gaps rather than compete.
Taiwan sent its biggest-ever delegation to the SelectUSA investment summit in May, with most groups touring the Midwest to look at drones, chips, robots, and food.
The Midwest is also Taiwan's largest US farm trading partner, giving state lawmakers a direct stake in the relationship.
Lei condemned China for twisting a UN resolution to shut Taiwan out of international bodies, and for damaging undersea cables near the island.
Outlook: Expect Taiwan to keep courting US state governments directly as a way around the limits on formal diplomacy.
Taiwan's legislature has approved a major push into drone manufacturing, a positive for the island's tech industry and defense but one that still needs the cabinet's sign-off to start spending.
Lawmakers passed a bill setting aside T$240 billion over six years to build a homegrown drone and unmanned vehicle industry.
The economics ministry will run the program, with the defense ministry handling military purchases.
The cabinet is expected to approve the funding shortly and add it to this year's extra budget, plus next year's main budget.
Backers argue Taiwan's existing chip and electronics supply chain makes it the natural place to become the world's biggest drone producer, creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in orders.
The law includes items Washington had pushed for and creates a national committee to steer the strategy.
Outlook: If the cabinet signs off as expected in early September, money starts flowing this year and Taiwan begins building what supporters call a second industry pillar alongside semiconductors.
Taiwan's opposition KMT is positioning itself as the party of cross-strait dialogue while dodging questions about who runs in 2028 — a calming signal for anyone worried about war over Taiwan.
KMT chair Cheng Li-wun ruled out picking a favorite for the 2028 presidential race, saying the party won't bend its rules to fit one person.
Her job, she said, is a fair nomination process, the strongest candidate, and keeping the opposition bloc together with the TPP.
She visited Beijing and Washington in the first half of this year and calls the outreach steady progress toward lowering tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Peace, not confrontation, is still an option — and the Beijing trip showed there is room to reduce hostility, she argues.
Washington quietly welcomes calm in the strait but wants proof the thaw can last; decades of US–China distrust won't clear overnight.
Outlook: A late-September meeting between the US and Chinese leaders is expected to be the next real test of whether the warming holds.
A Taiwanese lawmaker says China is trying to win over Tzuyu, the Taiwanese member of K-pop group TWICE, calling it a transparent influence play that Taiwanese will see through.
A weekly magazine reported China has made Tzuyu a new target of its influence campaign aimed at Taiwan.
DPP lawmaker Lee Kun-cheng said Beijing's pressure reaches everywhere — entertainers, media, and culture.
He called the move obvious to anyone watching, and said Taiwanese will recognize it for what it is.
He pointed to the irony that Tzuyu was blacklisted in China a decade ago simply for holding a Republic of China flag.
He also dismissed the "1992 consensus" still invoked by the KMT, arguing no such agreement exists.
Outlook: Expect more friction over Taiwanese celebrities working in Chinese-linked markets as the island heads deeper into election season.
As registration for Yilan's year-end elections got under way, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Yu Kuo-lien was driven to register in his father's taxi, a symbolic gesture linking himself to the clean-government image of the late county magistrate Chen Ding-nan.
Yu Kuo-lien's father, Yu Tsai-tien, was once Chen Ding-nan's driver, taking him to every corner of Yilan.
Yu Kuo-lien said he grew up hearing stories of Chen Ding-nan's political career, and wants to bring vision, integrity and meticulousness into the county council.
Former county magistrate Liu Shou-cheng appeared as honorary campaign chairman, publicly signalling that the baton is being passed to a younger generation.
Yilan City mayoral candidate Han Ying also joined him on stage, calling for support for the whole "Yilan Team".
The campaign team spans politics, medicine and local history: physician Huang Chien-tsai serves as campaign chairman, with local historian Lin Cheng-fang as secretary-general.
Outlook: With the campaign now formally under way, the DPP in Yilan will centre its message on generational succession and a clean image, and whether it can hold its ground locally will depend on the year-end vote.
Taiwan's National Security Bureau paid an American consulting firm to open doors in Washington during last year's tariff talks — a sign of how hard Taipei worked to protect its trade position, and it says everything was registered legally.
Taiwan's security bureau hired US firm ASG Corp. for about six months of advice on government relations and trade, paying $325,000.
The firm set up a meeting between Taiwan's security chief Tsai Ming-yen and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, one of Trump's closest voices on tariffs.
The work started right after Trump announced his across-the-board tariffs, when Taiwan faced pressure on trade terms, US investment, and supply chains.
The bureau says paid lobbying is normal practice between democracies and that it filed all required disclosures under US foreign-agent rules.
Taipei credits this multi-channel push for landing better tariff terms than its main competitors.
Outlook: Expect more scrutiny in Taiwan's legislature over spending public money on Washington lobbying, even as the government defends it as normal.
Negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party over the Zhubei City mayoral race in Hsinchu County have broken down, dealing a blow to the two parties' plans to join forces in the 2026 local elections and to unseat the Democratic Progressive Party in 2028.
With the two parties unable to reach agreement in Zhubei, Ko Wen-je has called on Huang Kuo-chang and Cheng Li-wun to come forward, explain the situation, and clean up the mess.
Huang Kuo-chang accused the KMT of "burning down an entire forest for the sake of one tree," a sign that mutual trust between the two sides has been seriously damaged.
Lee Yen-hsiu warned that "backlash votes" cast by angry supporters could become the final straw that breaks blue-white cooperation.
Cooperation between the two parties had been running smoothly, with agreements already signed in New Taipei, Yilan and Chiayi City, while the KMT has thrown its weight behind Kao Hung-an in Hsinchu City.
The cautionary precedent is the collapse of the joint ticket in the 2024 presidential election, which opposition supporters have yet to get over; against the DPP's organisation and resources, division means both sides lose.
Outlook: If the two parties' leaderships cannot quickly find a face-saving way out in Zhubei, the rift could spread to other constituencies and weaken their overall prospects in 2026.
Taiwanese chipmaker Visual Photonics Epitaxy (VPEC) surged to its daily limit as demand for optical components picked up — good news for holders, though a broad market slide trimmed the gain.
The stock hit its limit-up price within half an hour of trading resuming after a regulatory trading restriction was lifted.
Optical chip sales are booming, more than doubling from a year ago and now making up over a quarter of revenue.
China approving some substrate shipments should push optical sales up sharply this quarter, even as a key substrate stays in short supply.
The company is buying two extra chipmaking machines beyond its original plan to serve new US customer orders.
Foreign investors have bought the stock five days running; profit forecasts point to earnings rising by half again next year.
Outlook: Growth looks set to accelerate this quarter, but the wider Taiwan market falling more than 600 points is capping how far the stock can run.
Taiwan's legislature has approved a major defense-autonomy and drone law, and the opposition KMT wants it to turn drones into the island's next chip-scale industry — good news for Taiwan's manufacturers if the money actually flows.
The bill sets aside around $40 billion Taiwan dollars a year for six years, roughly $240 billion in total, run by the economics ministry.
The KMT caucus, led by Fu Kun-chi, says Taiwan can build a full drone supply chain and become the world's biggest drone production base.
The cabinet plans to countersign the law and fold the spending into this year's extra budget, with changes to next year's main budget.
A new national strategy committee will oversee the plan, with party-nominated experts and public review reports, and the law includes items the U.S. side pushed for.
The pitch is jobs and export dollars: militaries everywhere are buying drones for asymmetric warfare, and Taiwan already has the IT supply chain to serve them.
Outlook: The fight now moves to whether the cabinet completes the countersignature and how the money gets divided — the next round of political trench warfare.
A former Japanese security official says Chinese-linked buyers are moving into everyday infrastructure in Japan, which is bad news for Japan's control over its own essential services.
Most crematoriums in central Tokyo are now run by a group tied to a China-born businessman, and that has set off alarm in Japan.
The next targets are expected to be nursing homes, elder care centers, and hospitals.
These places hold huge amounts of personal data — names, addresses, family ties, health records — which can be used to map local relationships and influence.
The appeal is that people cannot avoid these services, so whoever runs them can raise prices or change terms and customers have nowhere else to go.
The pattern echoes how China has used pandas, rare earths, and trade limits: create dependence first, then use it as leverage.
Outlook: Japan is likely to face pressure to widen its foreign investment screening beyond remote islands and water sources to include hospitals and elder care.
IC substrate maker Unimicron is trying to calm investors after a raid on its offices, but the stock still crashed — bad news for holders, and a scare for the AI supply chain.
Taiwanese prosecutors searched Unimicron over a dispute about where some products were labeled as made.
Unimicron rarely comments publicly, but issued a statement saying the products in question are ordinary circuit boards, not the ABF substrates used in AI chips.
Investors dumped the stock anyway: it opened limit-down with a huge pile of unfilled sell orders and dropped out of Taiwan's club of stocks trading above NT$1,000.
The worry is that a supply hit at Unimicron would ripple into the global chip packaging chain, since it is the top maker of these substrates.
Outlook: The investigation is still open, so the stock is likely to stay under pressure until prosecutors clarify how wide the case is.
The U.S. dollar slipped against Taiwan's currency in early Monday trading, a small win for Taiwanese importers and a mild drag on the island's exporters.
The greenback traded lower against the Taiwan dollar at the Monday open, easing from Friday's close.
A weaker U.S. dollar makes imports cheaper for Taiwan but trims the earnings of exporters who sell in dollars.
Taiwan stocks also opened lower the same morning, pointing to a cautious mood among investors.
Chip news framed the session, with TSMC pushing integrated systems as the next driver of AI growth and Taipei and Washington moving to expand semiconductor workforce ties.
Outlook: Currency moves this small rarely last, and the direction from here will hinge more on chip demand and U.S. rate expectations than on any single session.
Taiwanese chip substrate maker Kinsus is falling sharply after a big shareholder said it would sell a chunk of its stock, a setback for a share price that had been racing toward a record.
Pegatron's investment arm filed plans to sell a large block of Kinsus shares to raise cash.
Kinsus dropped more than 9% in early trading, hit further by a broader pullback in Taiwan stocks.
The stock had been one of the year's stars, hitting repeated record highs and closing in on the NT$1,000 mark.
Business itself is strong: first-half profit already beat all of last year, helped by booming demand for ABF substrates used in AI chips.
Kinsus has raised its investment budget twice this year, adding roughly NT$19.6 billion as substrate supply stays tight and prices rise.
Outlook: The selling pressure delays the run at NT$1,000, but tight ABF supply and AI chip demand still point to stronger profits ahead.
Taiwan's year-end local elections moved into gear as candidate registration opened in Taichung, with the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen-aligned faction making a show of unity on day one.
Eight DPP city council candidates from the "Ing" faction registered together in Taichung, escorted by the local party chief.
They campaigned on slogans tying their faction's brand to a change of mayor and a "new generation" for the city.
Heavyweight backers including lawmakers Wang Shih-chien and Chuang Ruei-shiung plan to stump for them, and former president Tsai Ing-wen is expected to help nationwide when her schedule allows.
Their pitch leans on attacking the outgoing Lu administration's eight-year record, citing the African swine fever scare and a tainted cooking oil case.
The candidates span districts across Taichung, mixing sitting councilors with first-time runners.
Outlook: Expect more coordinated group registrations and a steady stream of national party figures campaigning in Taichung as the vote nears.
A serial independent candidate has kicked off Taiwan's 2026 local election registration, making his sixth run for office — a colorful sideshow to a race shaped by an opposition alliance.
Huang Hung-cheng, who campaigns under a self-styled "God of Wealth President" title, was first in line to register for Chiayi City mayor.
He staked out his spot by leaving a chair outside the election commission office days before registration opened.
His platform is "anti-bullying, seeking justice," and he is urging voters to abandon the KMT-TPP joint candidate Chang Chi-kai and back him instead.
He has lost all five previous runs, for county chief, legislator, and mayor, since 2014.
He says a "pay your debts" notice was stuck on his door just before he filed, and plans to report it to police as possible election interference.
Outlook: Registration continues this week, and the real contest in Chiayi City will hinge on whether the opposition alliance holds.
The US Treasury chief wants other countries to put up more trade barriers against China — bad news for Chinese exporters, and a sign the trade fight is widening beyond Washington.
Bessent will press G20 members to review their trade terms with China to shrink global imbalances.
China's trade surplus of over a trillion dollars is called unsustainable, driven by a weak economy leaning on exports to survive.
US tariffs and outright bans on Chinese goods like cars have pushed those exports toward Europe and Latin America instead.
Other countries are being told it is now their job to push China toward buying more at home rather than selling abroad.
Direct US-China trade relations are described as improving quickly, even as the pressure campaign spreads.
Outlook: Expect Europe and Latin America to face growing US pressure to tighten their own doors to Chinese goods.
Taiwan's local election season formally opened, and two Democratic Progressive Party newcomers were first in line to file in Taipei — a small but telling sign of how hard the party will have to fight for city council seats.
Registration for Taiwan's nationwide local elections runs from the end of August into early September, with voting about 89 days out.
DPP city council hopefuls Chang Ming-yu and Lin Tzu-yang registered before dawn in Taipei's Zhongzheng-Wanhua and Zhongshan-Datong districts.
Both are pitching bread-and-butter issues: old building safety, traffic, childcare, elder care, and reviving local shopping districts.
Lin is leaning on his central government and diplomatic résumé, promising to connect Taipei more closely with the wider world.
Party backers openly describe the pair as long-shot candidates likely to scrape in at best, underlining the DPP's weak position in the capital.
Outlook: Candidate lists will firm up over the coming days, with the DPP facing an uphill campaign in Taipei ahead of the year-end vote.
China kept up daily military pressure around Taiwan, with several aircraft crossing into the northern air zone — a routine but steady pressure on Taipei.
Taiwan's defense ministry tracked six Chinese navy ships and four government vessels around the island in 24 hours.
Four Chinese military aircraft were spotted, and three of them crossed the unofficial dividing line in the Taiwan Strait.
The crossings pushed into airspace off Taiwan's northern coast.
Taiwan responded with its own planes, ships, and land-based missile systems on watch.
Outlook: These near-daily incursions look set to continue, keeping Taiwan's forces on constant alert.
Taiwan's ruling DPP opened the 2026 local election season with a coordinated push in New Taipei City, aiming to lift its numbers on a council it does not control.
Five young DPP candidates tied to the Su family registered together on day one, a show of unity ahead of the November 28 vote.
Their pitches are local and practical: more public daycare, sports centers, sidewalks, urban renewal, and a public animal hospital.
The group is campaigning behind Su Chiao-hui, the party's candidate for New Taipei mayor, in a city long held by the opposition.
The stated goal is to win every seat they contest and take a council majority — an ambitious target in unfriendly territory.
Outlook: New Taipei will be one of the most closely watched races of the November local elections, with the mayor's seat a key test of the DPP's strength.
Taiwan's 2026 local election season formally opened as candidate registration began, with a New Taipei council hopeful racing to be first in line — a small but telling sign of how tight local races have become.
Registration for Taiwan's 2026 local elections opened, kicking off the final stretch of the campaign.
Kao Nai-yun, a Democratic Progressive Party candidate for the New Taipei city council, showed up at 8am to be the first to file.
She lost her last race by just 40 votes, and says being first this time is meant to signal how serious she is.
She picked the hour on the advice of an I Ching teacher, and will later file jointly with DPP mayoral candidate Su Chiao-hui.
Outlook: With under three months to voting day, expect DPP candidates in New Taipei to campaign as a bloc to squeeze out margins in districts decided by a handful of votes.
A former Taiwanese township chief close to Ko Wen-je fled to China days before his corruption verdict, a bad look for the Taiwan People's Party and for the courts' ability to stop fugitives.
Chen Ya-lin, once the country's youngest township chief, got eight years for taking bribes on public works and misusing an official car.
He slipped out of Taiwan two days before the January verdict and went to China, earlier than anyone assumed.
The High Court branch has now issued a warrant after he repeatedly failed to appear for his appeal.
He is the second Ko Wen-je confidant to flee and be listed as a fugitive, after Hsu Chih-yu.
Court papers show he drew a large salary from a Ko-linked firm while also taking cash payments with no paper trail, awkward for a party that campaigns on clean finances.
Outlook: With Chen out of reach in China, pressure is building on Taiwan's courts to tighten exit controls on defendants awaiting verdicts.
Taiwan's IC substrate leader Unimicron crashed to its daily price limit at the open after reports it faked the country of origin on some products — bad news for holders, especially the many funds that own it heavily.
Unimicron shares and its stock futures both opened limit-down, with a huge pile of unfilled sell orders and almost no buyers.
The suspected problem is mislabeled origin on circuit boards, not on the ABF substrates that drive most of the company's business.
Local analysts expect the fallout to be fines, back taxes, and criminal charges for the people involved, rather than a US blacklisting, since no national security angle is in play.
US customers have little room to switch suppliers anyway — ABF substrates are in short supply and no rival plant can absorb the orders.
The bigger short-term risk is forced selling, because Unimicron is a top holding in active ETFs and funds.
Outlook: The damage looks contained to the legal bill and a sharp near-term hit to the share price, with orders likely to stay put.
Candidate registration for Kaohsiung's mayor and city council races has opened, with the campaign season now formally underway ahead of a late-November vote.
Registration for both the mayoral and city council contests began this week in Kaohsiung.
DPP councillor Chiu Chun-hsien was first in line, arriving before 8am with his wife and daughter to file for a fourth term.
He brought along former local township heads and community leaders, including a former rival who is sitting this race out, as a show of cross-generational backing.
His pitch rests on a decade of perfect attendance at council sessions and 14 separate "quality councillor" ratings from civic groups.
He is running on continuity, arguing local construction projects should not be interrupted mid-stream.
Outlook: Voters in Kaohsiung go to the polls on 28 November, with the field taking shape over the registration period.
A senior Taiwanese political scholar warns that Taiwan's security could be traded away when Trump and Xi meet in late September — bad news for Taipei, good news for Beijing.
Xi is expected to arrive with a huge purchase order that lets Trump claim a win at home before the US midterms.
In exchange, Beijing would push Trump to back away from Taiwan — opposing independence, forcing Taipei into peace talks, signing a fourth joint communiqué, and ending US weapons sales.
A deal like that would hand Xi the justification he needs to lock in another five-year term.
Taiwan's politicians are consumed by their own election fight and are barely discussing the summit.
China still faces real brakes on any move against Taiwan: internal military loyalty risks, a shaky economy, and fear of US and Japanese intervention.
Outlook: The recommended response is for Taipei to guard against Chinese influence operations and lobby the US Congress hard before the two leaders sit down.
Taiwanese solar system supplier Jyu Heng Technology has landed a contract from the government of Palau, a positive development for both the company's operations this year and its overseas expansion.
Jyu Heng has been awarded Palau's "one-stop building solar installation" project, worth about US$2.7 million, with the full amount to be booked as revenue after completion and acceptance in the fourth quarter.
The sites include Palau's National Congress building, a sports stadium and the Ministry of Education, and the work covers solar power, energy storage, energy management and electric bus charging stations in a single package.
Strong winds on the islands and local voltage standards that differ from Taiwan's mean the equipment and structures had to be redesigned, making the project considerably more demanding than domestic ones.
Chairman Chou Heng-hao said the project's greatest value lies in producing an integrated model that can be replicated in other overseas markets.
Outlook: Jyu Heng has already built up a track record of projects in Japan, Cambodia and elsewhere, and is expected to use the Palau model to continue pursuing overseas orders.
Taiwan IC substrate leader Unimicron has been searched by prosecutors and investigators over a dispute concerning country-of-origin labelling, putting short-term pressure on its share price. Foreign brokerages, however, see this as an entry point rather than a warning sign about fundamentals, and remain positive for long-term investors.
Unimicron was searched by prosecutors and investigators last Friday over a "country-of-origin labelling" declaration issue, not a problem with its core business.
The Hejiang plant under investigation makes ordinary printed circuit boards rather than high-end ABF substrates, so the impact on revenue and earnings is limited.
All three major foreign brokerages have maintained a positive view, and singled out a share price below NT$950 as a level worth considering for buying.
This case is not about the US ban on Chinese circuit boards; even if capacity in China were restricted, Unimicron could redistribute orders to plants in other regions.
Outlook: Negative short-term sentiment may keep the share price volatile for a while, but as long as the investigation does not widen to the core substrate business, institutional investors expect the price to stabilise.
Taiwan's Nationalist party got a morale boost in the tight New Taipei mayor race, good news for its candidate Lee Si-chuan and a setback for his rival.
Outgoing mayor Hou Yu-ih said publicly that Lee Si-chuan is the man to take over from him.
Lee posted the clip on social media and thanked Hou, saying he will carry the weight and keep building on the work.
Hou's endorsement matters because his approval rating after eight years in office is above 70%.
Polls show Lee and rival Su Chiao-hui trading the lead, so neither side has a clear edge.
Su has avoided attacking Hou and has shared stages with him, a sign of how popular he still is.
Outlook: With about two months left before the vote, expect Hou to campaign visibly for Lee as both camps fight over a race that is still too close to call.
Taiwan's opposition KMT is heading into year-end local elections with its leader publicly conceding weak spots, a warning sign for the party but also a bid to lower expectations.
Cheng Li-wun says the KMT has "some problems" in Chiayi City and Changhua County, and that supporters are anxious.
She still expects a result voters will be satisfied with, and sidestepped questions about resigning if the party underperforms.
She denied she is lining up a 2028 presidential run, saying her job is to pick the strongest candidate and keep the KMT-TPP alliance together.
After trips to Beijing and Washington this year, she argues talks with China can lower the risk of war and that peace is still an option for both sides.
She claims morale is up, with over 10,000 new members joining since she took over nine months ago.
Outlook: The KMT's showing in Chiayi and Changhua will decide whether Cheng's leadership survives the year-end vote, and she expects the late-September US-China leaders' meeting to shape the cross-strait mood.
Penghu's year-end local elections formally kicked off with candidate registration, and one independent contender is pushing to replace the usual campaign speeches with a live debate.
Registration for Penghu's five-in-one year-end elections opened, with candidates signing up over several days in early September.
Independent county magistrate candidate Hsu Chih-fu publicly challenged all rivals to a televised debate instead of the traditional platform presentation.
Under the rules, a debate can replace the standard format if two-thirds of candidates agree.
The magistrate race is crowded: the DPP's Wu Shu-chin, the KMT's Chen Chen-chung, and several independents plus a Taiwan Solidarity Union candidate have declared.
The argument for a debate is that voters can judge governing ability directly, rather than through campaign leaflets.
Outlook: Whether the debate happens depends on whether two-thirds of the candidates sign on once registration closes.
Asian markets opened Monday with steep losses after hawkish comments from the Fed rattled investors, bad news for anyone holding Asian tech and chip stocks.
South Korea's market led the drop, falling more than 3% at one point before buyers stepped in and trimmed the loss.
Negotiations between the KMT and the TPP over the Zhubei mayoral election in Hsinchu County have broken down, dealing a blow to cooperation between the two parties and making the local race harder to predict.
The TPP had believed the two sides had a tacit understanding: the county magistrate's seat would go to the KMT's Hsu Hsin-ying, while the TPP would field a candidate for Zhubei mayor.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun said at their meeting that she could not resolve the Zhubei question, and the TPP shifted to backing Chiu Chen-yuan in registering and running to the end.
Ko Wen-je confronted Huang Kuo-chang in person in Taichung, demanding that Cheng Li-wun make her position clear, and criticised the notion that a party leader can simply turn public sentiment around at will.
Huang Kuo-chang described the KMT as "setting the whole forest on fire for the sake of one tree," saying he still does not understand the other side's decision.
The KMT, for its part, said the integration process is complicated and that with registration open until 4 September, it will keep working until the last moment.
Outlook: There is still room for a turnaround before the registration deadline, but cracks have appeared in the stable cooperation the two parties have maintained since 2024, and the ultimate effect will depend on how voters cast their ballots.
A former local leader tied to Ko Wen-je's political circle is now a fugitive in a bribery case, another blow to the Taiwan People's Party's clean-government image.
Chen Ya-lin, once the youngest township chief in Taiwan, has been listed as wanted after repeatedly failing to show up for his appeal hearing.
A lower court gave him eight years for taking kickbacks on rigged construction contracts and using an official car for personal trips.
He is the second close Ko Wen-je ally to become a wanted fugitive, after the figure known as "Orange."
Ko's party said it could not discipline him because he was never formally a member, even while he held a senior campaign title.
Court records from Ko's political donations case show Chen was paid a high monthly salary in cash by an outside company while holding that party post.
Outlook: The corruption appeal continues while Chen remains at large, keeping pressure on Ko Wen-je's party over its money handling.
Taiwan's local election season formally opened in Taichung, with all three main parties staging group registrations to show strength — a neutral but telling early read on the balance of power.
Registration for mayor, city councillors, and village chiefs runs through September 4.
Eight DPP councillor candidates from the party's Ing faction registered together first, escorted by the local party chief.
The TPP sent party leader Huang Kuo-chang himself to accompany six candidates, hoping to win at least three seats and form a caucus.
Eight younger KMT incumbents registered as a bloc, dressing up as workers from different trades to pitch themselves as a voice for ordinary jobs.
The two mayoral heavyweights come later — the DPP's Ho Hsin-chun on September 2, the KMT's Chiang Chi-chen on September 3.
Outlook: More faction-by-faction registrations follow this week, with the mayoral race in Taichung shaping up as a straight DPP-KMT fight while the TPP tries to carve out a foothold on the council.
Taiwan's foreign ministry has asked lawmakers for a larger budget next year, with the classified portion jumping sharply — a sign of more spending on diplomacy it does not want to explain in public.
The ministry wants about NT$43.4 billion in total spending for next year.
The secret part of that budget rises nearly 40%, to about NT$2.4 billion.
Most of the money still goes to international cooperation and aid programs, with the rest split between running the ministry and its overseas offices.
NT$1 billion is set aside to build a Taiwan industrial park in Eswatini, Taiwan's last ally in Africa, to pull Taiwanese firms into the country and create jobs there.
Outlook: The plan now goes to Taiwan's legislature, where opposition lawmakers are likely to press for answers on the jump in secret spending before approving it.
Taiwan's year-end city and county mayor races formally open for candidate registration, and the ruling DPP is switching its line of attack — bad news for the KMT's two highest-profile mayors.
Registration for the year-end mayoral elections opens now, kicking off the campaign proper.
The DPP spent the last phase attacking eight KMT lawmakers running for mayor over budget cuts and legislative chaos.
The next phase targets how Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an and Taichung mayor Lu Shiu-yen actually run their cities — rubbish, transport, and basic services.
A budget cut that hit sheltered workshops for disabled workers backfired badly, with even the KMT chair now distancing herself from it.
A failed KMT–TPP alliance deal in Hsinchu County is being used as proof the opposition cannot keep its word.
Outlook: The DPP is betting on a strong showing from its northern Taiwan pairing of Puma Shen and Su Chiao-hui, with the campaign season now fully underway.
Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature keeps extending its session without actually doing the work, leaving more than 180 budget and regulatory items to blow past their legal deadlines — bad for government oversight and for anyone waiting on these rules.
Since February last year, the KMT and TPP majority has kept the session running on repeated extensions but has barely processed the cases in front of it.
More than 180 items are stuck, including budgets and final accounts for the foreign ministry, defense ministry, national security bureau and veterans affairs, some dating back three budget years.
Budget books for government-linked foundations, along with final accounts, have also sat unreviewed past the limits set by law.
Everyday rules are caught in the jam too: employment fund management, naturalized citizens' military service, and food recall and disposal rules all missed their deadlines.
Some of the delayed items were ones the opposition caucuses themselves demanded be sent to committee, then never scheduled — one court recording broadcast rule missed its deadline twice, even after an extension was granted.
Outlook: With committees still not scheduling these cases, the backlog is likely to keep growing and more items will expire before anyone reviews them.
Taiwan's Hualien County is under fresh scrutiny over vote-buying, a bad sign for the credibility of local elections ahead of the coming county races.
A former Financial Times correspondent based in Taiwan said that in rural Hualien, where she lives, essentially all votes are bought, with neighbors openly discussing who came by and how much a vote costs this year.
Hualien prosecutors said they have opened a case based on the report and warned candidates not to break the law.
Vote-buying in Hualien is a long-running problem: a tenth of the country's whistleblower reward money went to the county in one recent year, and a later crackdown brought dozens of searches and several detentions.
The Kuomintang's local branch has repeatedly been fined over candidates convicted of election crimes, with penalties running into the millions of Taiwan dollars.
Local reaction is split — a county councilor welcomed a serious crackdown, while most pan-blue politicians declined to comment or privately called the claims exaggerated.
Outlook: Expect more searches and questioning in Hualien as the election season heats up, though past cases suggest convictions are harder to land than headlines.
Bidding has opened for Round 3-3 of the third phase of Taiwan's offshore wind programme, with two European wind giants in a direct contest over the same stretch of sea — a tough fight for the developers, but good news for Taiwan's supply chain.
Denmark-based Ørsted's Dadu 1 wind farm overlaps in site with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners' (CIP) Fengmiao 3 wind farm, and only one of the two can win it.
Ørsted came away empty-handed in the first two rounds and is making a fresh push this time; CIP won awards in both earlier rounds and goes in on firmer footing.
This round is no longer decided on price alone, but on a full assessment of developers' track record, finances and delivery capability, with added rewards for early completion and for boosting local industry.
To clean up the mess left by past zero-bid tenders, a floor purchase price of NT$2.29 per kilowatt-hour has been added, making it easier for wind farms to secure bank loans.
The waters of terminated earlier projects such as Haixia, Haiding and Deshuai have been reclassified as "expansion capacity"; developers must first win formal capacity before adding more, capped at half the original amount.
Outlook: Submissions close on 30 September, with a total of 3.6 GW on offer and grid connection set for 2030 to 2031. The fight over the overlapping Ørsted and CIP sites will be the round's main storyline.
Taiwan's Yilan county magistrate race is shaping up as a straight blue-versus-green fight, with both main candidates registering this week.
DPP candidate Lin Kuo-chang registers on September 2, with a "land dragon boat" event meant to show party unity.
His campaign is leaning hard on local roots, bringing along old classmates from his Yilan schools to cast him as a true local.
His platform promises industry change, cultural preservation, greener policy, better transport, and more social welfare.
KMT candidate Wu Tsung-hsien registers first, accompanied by the county council speaker and the local TPP chief — a signal that the opposition blue and white camps are joining forces.
Outlook: The Yilan contest is set to become a two-way battle between the DPP and a combined KMT-TPP front ahead of the year-end vote.
Taiwan's opposition alliance between the KMT and the TPP has broken down over who runs for mayor of Zhubei, straining a partnership both sides had hoped to carry into the local elections.
The two parties failed to agree on a joint candidate in Zhubei, and the fallout is spilling into other races.
Ko Wen-je pressed KMT chair Cheng Li-wun to explain publicly what she told TPP chair Huang Kuo-chang, warning that angry supporters do not fall in line just because leaders change course.
Huang said trust is built slowly and easily broken, and accused the KMT of burning down a forest for the sake of one tree.
Cheng struck a softer tone, saying Zhubei is a special case and the disagreement does not change the two parties' shared goal of cooperating.
Attention now shifts to Changhua, where the TPP says it will not field a candidate for county chief, though its local branch hints the registration deadline will tell the real story.
Outlook: Both leaderships are trying to contain the damage, but further disputes over candidate slots could weaken opposition coordination heading into the elections.
Taiwan has moved its Maanshan nuclear plant one step closer to restarting, good news for anyone worried about the island's tight power supply, but the reactor is still years of paperwork away from producing electricity.
Regulators finished reviewing the restart plan, so the plant officially shifts from being wound down to being prepped for a restart.
Three hurdles remain: carrying out the restart plan, an in-house safety check by state utility Taipower, and a final green light from the nuclear safety agency.
The hardest part is proving that a reactor built to last 40 years can safely run for 60 — those calculations then go to outside experts for review.
A national vote on scrapping Taiwan's nuclear-free policy is set for late November alongside local elections, but the result is not binding either way.
Restarting is expected to cost billions, and a second plant, Kuosheng, is stuck because its spent fuel pool is full with nowhere to put the rods.
Outlook: The safety checks should wrap up by the end of next year at the latest, so no Taiwanese reactor is coming back online before then.
Taiwan's opposition-controlled parliament is being accused of paralyzing the government by stalling budgets, a fight that now looks set to shape the local elections at the end of the year.
The legislature has stretched its session to the longest on record while more than 180 budget items and administrative orders have blown past their legal review deadlines.
The main government budget of nearly NT$3 trillion finally passed, but roughly NT$6 trillion in state-owned enterprise and special fund budgets is still stuck.
Watchdog group Citizen Congress Watch calls it shameful, saying cuts and freezes are choking energy and technology plans at state firms like CPC and Taipower.
Critics say the goal is to make the government look incompetent, at the cost of defense spending and Taiwan's standing abroad.
A similar stall happened in 2013 under a KMT-led legislature, raising fears the pattern is repeating.
Outlook: The year-end local elections are shaping up as a referendum on the opposition bloc's handling of parliament.
By bringing together three female candidates and youth voters in Miaoli, a traditionally difficult constituency, the DPP is sending a positive signal for a Green camp hoping to turn the tables locally, while putting pressure on the local factions that have long held power.
Miaoli County magistrate candidate Chen Pin-an, Miaoli City mayoral candidate Lin Yueh-chin and Zhuolan Township mayoral candidate Chen Chun-nuan jointly established a youth support group, campaigning on the themes of women in politics and cross-generational cooperation.
Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim appeared at the event to stump for the three, drawing on her own experience contesting a difficult constituency in Hualien to boost their campaigns.
Chen Pin-an is centring her platform on youth policy: participatory budgeting, interest-free loans for study abroad, and an angel fund to help young people start businesses.
On the problem of young entrepreneurs losing their shopfronts when landlords take the premises back, she proposes that the county government renovate older buildings and use a sublease-and-management model with long-term contracts to keep rents stable.
Hsiao Bi-khim tied the local race to central government resources, stressing that the Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli Great Silicon Valley plan should bring industry and jobs to Miaoli.
Outlook: The Green camp will make the central government's Great Silicon Valley and NT$10 billion youth programmes its main selling points going forward, seeking to prise open Miaoli's established political map in the year-end local elections.
A young Taiwanese business traveler was pulled aside at Shanghai customs and interrogated for six hours because of a student job at Amnesty International, a warning sign for anyone with rights-group ties who travels to China.
Plainclothes officers took him to a closed room and pressed him on his old NGO role, the group's funding, and whether he wrote reports on Xinjiang, Tibet, or Hong Kong.
He was let go only after giving up on entering the country and flying home to Taiwan.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council says the account matches other cases it knows of, including people punished years later for political activity they had long left behind.
Officials believe Beijing has built name lists of staff, interns, and volunteers at international human rights groups and Taiwanese NGOs.
Taiwanese civil servants, police, and judges have also been stopped and questioned on recent trips across the strait.
Outlook: Taiwan is being urged to collect these cases and issue clearer travel warnings, and more people with any activist or public-service background are likely to be flagged at the Chinese border.
The race for New Taipei City mayor has formally entered its warm-up phase, with the Democratic Progressive Party and Kuomintang candidates both stepping up mobilisation this week — a critical moment for building momentum in either camp.
DPP candidate Su Chiao-hui will open her campaign headquarters in Banqiao on September 5, with Lai Ching-te, Tsai Ing-wen and Chen Chi-mai all appearing on stage in support.
Su has recently put forward Hakka and labour policy proposals, including an AI database of Hakka culture, an incubation base for youth entrepreneurship, higher occupational-injury compensation payments and subsidies for heat protection.
On the KMT side, incumbent mayor Hou Yu-ih appeared alongside Lee Szu-chuan twice within three days, publicly stating: "My successor is Lee Szu-chuan."
Lee is campaigning on continuing Hou's infrastructure agenda, including building the Lu-She Bridge, linking up an AI technology industry corridor across Taipei and New Taipei, and constructing a hospital in Luzhou.
After the collapse of blue-white cooperation in the Zhubei mayoral race, attention has turned to whether Huang Kuo-chang will shift to New Taipei; Lee stressed that blue-white cooperation in New Taipei will not change.
Outlook: Registration for the New Taipei mayoral and city council races opens today, with Su expected to register on September 2, and the campaign set to keep heating up ahead of the November 28 polling day.
Taiwan's plan to restart its nuclear plants faces a new hold-up: the world is suddenly short of nuclear engineers, parts, and know-how, which is bad news for anyone hoping for a quick restart.
Trump's backing for nuclear power and the huge electricity appetite of AI have revived the global nuclear market, so Taiwan now has to queue for help.
Westinghouse, the original builder of Taiwan's third nuclear plant, is sitting on about 91 potential reactor orders worldwide and is stretched thin on staff, equipment, and suppliers.
Taipower has secured Westinghouse's technical help for its own safety checks at the third plant, but that work is expected to take two years.
The second plant should be quicker: its builder, GE, has fewer projects on its plate, and Taipower already holds fuller technical rights and documents for it.
Westinghouse is now tight-fisted with its designs and software after China absorbed its technology and turned into a rival exporter.
Outlook: Restart timing will hinge less on Taiwan's own safety reviews than on whether foreign engineers and key parts show up on time.
China has labeled Palau an unsafe travel destination to punish it for hosting Taiwan's foreign minister, a warning shot to any small country that keeps ties with Taipei.
Palau's president said Beijing blacklisted the island for tourists after Taiwan's foreign minister Lin Chia-lung arrived with a delegation.
Taiwan's foreign ministry called it economic coercion — using tourism as a weapon to force other countries to switch sides.
Palau is one of the few Pacific states that still recognizes Taiwan, making it a target as China buys influence across the region.
The visit came with Taiwanese-made electric buses, solar panels and a hydrogen energy project meant to help Palau run on all renewable power by 2032.
The timing is pointed: the Pacific Islands Forum summit opened the same week, with regional leaders riding those buses.
Outlook: Chinese tourist numbers to Palau will likely stay throttled, and Taiwan will answer with more aid and energy deals to keep its last Pacific friends onside.
Democratic Progressive Party Taichung mayoral candidate Ho Hsin-chun has established a women's support group, signalling a full-scale push for votes ahead of next year's mayoral election — a positive sign for the pan-green camp's prospects.
More than a thousand supporters attended the inaugural meeting of the "Hsin-chun Sisterhood," which included a flag-presentation ceremony and the issuing of certificates to the heads of its various branches.
Ho is campaigning on "three firsts": efficiency in advancing the MRT system, all-ages care benefits, and an industrial cluster for unmanned vehicles.
Expanded benefits include doubling the childbirth subsidy, subsidies for postpartum care and egg freezing, and ensuring that points on the senior citizens' care card do not expire, along with a broader range of places where they can be used.
If finances permit and the city council approves, she also plans to distribute cash payments to all residents to share the dividends of the city's development.
On the question of a KMT-TPP alliance, Ho said that was a matter of political calculation among the parties, and that the choice of mayor rests with the city's residents.
Outlook: The Taichung race will continue to heat up around women's votes and expanded welfare pledges, with whether the KMT and TPP can unite remaining a key variable.
Taiwan's opposition KMT is turning the year-end local elections into a fight over nuclear power, a push aimed at overturning the ruling DPP's phase-out policy.
The election commission approved only one of three opposition-backed referendums: scrapping the nuclear-free homeland policy. Proposals on caning and traffic fines were rejected.
The KMT's pitch ties energy to national security and to the electricity needed for AI, and it plans a hundred local rallies to sell that message.
The party will run the referendum alongside the elections, working with other opposition parties and linking it to local candidates' campaigns.
The DPP accuses the opposition of paralyzing government through budget delays, blocked defense spending, and stalled appointments, and is targeting eight KMT lawmakers running for local office.
The KMT fires back over food safety failures, flood damage in the south, and the premier refusing to countersign laws passed by parliament.
Outlook: Expect months of dueling rallies as both sides treat the nuclear vote as a proxy test of the ruling party's record.
Pressure is building for the world's big economies to force China's currency higher, which would be bad for Chinese exporters and welcome relief for factories in Europe and the US.
China's trade surplus keeps growing and is on track to hit $1.2 trillion this year, a scale no country has reached since World War II.
The idea is a repeat of the 1985 Plaza Accord, but aimed at raising an undervalued yuan instead of knocking down an overpriced dollar.
Estimates put the yuan anywhere from 19% to 35% below where it should be, which makes Chinese goods artificially cheap abroad.
Anger is loudest in Europe, where France warned China's export wave now threatens the heart of European manufacturing and Germany's Merz called for a new deal in June.
China is not a US ally like West Germany and Japan were, and Beijing has already said it will not be pushed around over its exchange rate.
Outlook: G20 finance chiefs meet this week and tariffs — cut only if China lets the yuan rise — look like the only real lever, much as tariff threats worked in 2005.
Taiwan is deepening ties with one of its few remaining diplomatic allies through green energy aid, a positive sign for both sides as Taipei works to hold onto formal partners in the Pacific.
Taiwan's foreign minister Lin Chia-lung visited Palau and appeared with President Surangel Whipps Jr. at a handover of donated electric buses.
The two also launched a hydrogen energy initiative and opened solar panels installed on a shared government office building.
The aid is part of Taiwan's push to keep Pacific allies close as China pressures them to switch recognition to Beijing.
Clean energy projects are an easy sell in small island states that pay high prices for imported fuel.
Outlook: Expect more Taiwanese energy and infrastructure deals in the Pacific as the competition with China for diplomatic recognition continues.
Taiwan's stock market faces a short-term pullback after hawkish comments from Fed chair Warsh, but big investors still see dips as buying chances.
US stocks turned negative on Friday after Warsh signaled a tougher line on interest rates, dragging down TSMC and ASE shares traded in New York.
Taiwan futures fell sharply overnight, raising questions about whether September will still be a strong month.
Expensive AI stocks look most at risk, and the market may retest its quarterly average price line — a level traders watch closely.
Nvidia's strong chip shipments keep the outlook solid for Taiwan's advanced chipmaking, packaging and server suppliers.
Money is rotating out of pricey AI growth names into finance, industrials and high-dividend stocks, though not a broad move to bearishness.
Outlook: A choppy September is likely, with the international semiconductor show in early September and long-term AI demand expected to pull money back into tech leaders.
China has labeled Palau an "unsafe" travel destination in retaliation for a Taiwanese ministerial visit, a direct hit to a small island economy that depends on Chinese tourists.
Pacific leaders gather in Palau this week for the Pacific Islands Forum summit, with drugs, climate change, food security and clean energy on the agenda.
China moved against Palau after Taiwan's foreign minister visited, warning its citizens away from one of Taiwan's three remaining Pacific allies.
Beijing is the main creditor to many island states and protested loudly against Taiwan being invited as an aid partner.
Palau's president says the Pacific is a home, not a stage for big-power rivalry, and wants the focus kept on local problems.
Drug gangs are building smuggling routes across the Pacific, with cocaine and meth seizures in Fiji and an abandoned drug submarine found in the Solomon Islands.
Outlook: The Taiwan-China fight looks set to overshadow the summit, and leaders are still split over whether to condemn China's recent missile test.
Taiwan's ruling DPP is accusing the opposition KMT and TPP of dragging out the legislature's session to shield lawmakers facing criminal probes — bad news for the credibility of parliament, and for anyone hoping for real budget oversight.
The opposition bloc has set a record for the longest session extension in the legislature's history.
More than 180 budget, accounting, and administrative items have blown past their legal review deadlines.
The DPP says many of those items were sent to committee at the opposition's own request, then left untouched.
Several lawmakers are caught up in court cases, fueling claims the extension is really an immunity umbrella.
Political fights get scheduled and voted on quickly, while routine oversight work keeps slipping.
Outlook: Expect the standoff to sharpen as the overdue bills pile up and the court cases against sitting lawmakers move forward.
Taipei City Councillor Chung Hsiao-ping was the first to complete his candidacy registration, warning that if the Kuomintang fails to win a majority of seats in the city council, the pan-blue camp could lose control of the speakership — bad news for the pan-blue camp.
Chung said there are too many pan-blue and third-force candidates in the Zhongzheng-Wanhua constituency, splitting the vote and making the race easier for the Democratic Progressive Party.
The Taipei City Council has 61 seats, so a majority requires 31; he believes the KMT is in trouble if it fails to win 28 to 29 seats.
He is concerned that, once the Taiwan People's Party increases its seat count, the DPP will work with the TPP, ceding the speakership to the TPP while keeping the deputy speakership for itself.
He criticised Ko Wen-je as a "terrifying lover" and Huang Kuo-chang as a "gentle lover", saying Ko harbours a deep-seated dislike of the KMT, with the collapse of blue-white cooperation in Zhubei as an example.
He admitted he is under heavy pressure to win re-election, noting that he polled well last term but finished only seventh, and he urged supporters to consolidate their votes rather than engage in strategic vote-switching.
Outlook: Whether the blue and white camps can repair their cooperative relationship will determine who holds the Taipei City Council speakership and deputy speakership after the year-end elections.
Taiwan's 2026 local elections are down to the final stretch, and the New Taipei mayor's race has become the single biggest battleground for both major parties.
New Taipei is the race to watch, and it is unusually tense — the sitting mayor publicly backing his own party's candidate made front-page news, which normally would be routine.
Polls show the KMT candidate leading the DPP challenger by only a couple of points in New Taipei, close enough that either side could win.
The DPP looks ahead in Changhua, Chiayi and Yilan, while New Taipei, Hsinchu and Taitung are toss-ups.
The DPP is pushing hard for Taipei and the KMT for Kaohsiung — losing either would likely cost that party's chairman their job.
Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an has gained clout after leading a big street protest, fuelling talk of a 2028 presidential run.
Outlook: With under three months to go and several races within the margin of error, both parties are scrambling to shore up weak spots — and New Taipei will set the tone for 2028.
Taiwan's Zhubei mayoral race just got messier, and the biggest loser is the small Taiwan People's Party, now split against itself.
Former TPP lawmaker Li Chen-hsiu registered to run for Zhubei mayor, dressed head to toe in green for luck.
Her party had already picked a different candidate, so the TPP now has two people chasing the same seat.
The Kuomintang also put its own candidate forward, killing the plan for the two opposition parties to back one person.
Li's eligibility is under question because she is a mainland Chinese spouse, and rules say her Chinese status must be cancelled for ten years before she can run.
She openly criticized TPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang, saying the mess shows weak leadership.
Outlook: Local election officials will decide whether Li can stay on the ballot, and if she does, the split opposition vote likely hands the advantage to the ruling party.
Fresh first-hand accounts of cash-for-votes in Taiwan's local politics are landing on the KMT's county-level networks, a bad look for the party ahead of Taiwan's next local elections.
Courtney Donovan Smith, a Taipei Times columnist and former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taichung, says he once worked for KMT faction politicians in Changhua County and saw large piles of cash set aside for buying votes.
He says the people involved were open about it — when he joked whether the money was for him, they matter-of-factly told him it was for votes.
The claim follows former Financial Times correspondent Kathrin Hille's allegation that in Hualien, essentially all the votes are bought.
Both accounts point at entrenched local faction machines rather than one isolated candidate, which is the harder problem to clean up.
Outlook: Expect the KMT to face pressure to respond, and vote-buying to become a live campaign issue in Taiwan's local races.
Taiwanese IC substrate maker Unimicron was searched by prosecutors and investigators over alleged "origin laundering," sending its shares limit down at the open. Combined with hawkish signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve, Taiwan's stock market slumped across the board — bad news for investors.
Prosecutors and investigators searched Unimicron, probing product origin labelling and offences of obstructing agriculture, industry and commerce. Fourteen people were summoned for questioning and five released on bail.
Unimicron shares gapped down to the limit at NT$999, falling below the NT$1,000 mark, with sell orders piling up beyond 110,000 lots.
The company issued an urgent statement stressing that the products in dispute are ordinary printed circuit boards, not its core ABF substrate business.
Remarks by Fed Chair Warsh leaned hawkish, stoking market concerns about rate hikes. U.S. chip stocks fell first, with TSMC, MediaTek and Hon Hai weakening in step, and Taiwan's index at one point down more than 500 points.
Panel maker Innolux has lost a third of its value from its peak within two months, leaving investors who chased the highs trapped.
Outlook: Markets will now be watching how much shipment volume and how many customers the origin dispute actually involves, the real impact on Unimicron's revenue, and the Fed's interest rate decision in September.
MSCI's latest quarterly index shuffle takes effect after today's close, and it is a clear win for Taiwan's memory chip and IC substrate makers.
Six Taiwan stocks join MSCI's global standard index, including memory names Nanya Technology, Winbond and Phison, plus substrate makers Kinsus and Nan Ya PCB.
Nanya Technology is now one of the three largest additions by market value in the emerging markets index, showing how much the memory boom has lifted these companies.
Six names get dropped to the small cap index, including Taiwan Cement, Yang Ming Marine, Taiwan Business Bank and game maker International Games System.
Index funds have to buy the newcomers and sell the dropped names, which drives extra trading volume around the switch.
The backdrop is choppy: Taiwan's market has been swinging by a thousand points at a time after a recent 3,000-point plunge, though softer US inflation data has calmed fears of Fed rate hikes.
Outlook: Money should keep rotating toward memory, substrate and AI-linked names, while the demoted stocks face selling pressure from funds that track the index.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiu-yen is testing the waters on China policy for the first time, a sign she is lining up a 2028 presidential run — good for the KMT's cross-strait wing, awkward for rivals.
Two of Lu's closest aides travel to Dongguan in early September for a Taiwan products fair, standing in for a trip she avoided during election season.
Taiwanese businesspeople in China had pushed for Lu herself to visit, and want her to go after the November 28 vote but before she leaves office in December.
The delegation will stay tightly grouped, meet local business figures, and avoid any formal meetings or banquets with Chinese officials.
Cross-strait pressure is building elsewhere: Xi Jinping is expected in the U.S. in late September for a second meeting with Trump this year, with Taiwan on the agenda.
Taiwan's legislature passed a drone and defense-autonomy bill committing NT$240 billion over six years, with the defense ministry handling military procurement.
Outlook: Expect Lu to make a formal China trip in the weeks between the local elections and her handover, framing herself as the KMT's cross-strait candidate for 2028.
A new Keelung poll shows the sitting mayor's lead shrinking to almost nothing among voters who say they will definitely turn out — bad news for Hsieh Kuo-liang, good news for challenger Tung Tzu-wei.
Hsieh leads Tung by about five points overall, but among people certain to vote the two are dead even.
Tung's backers are more motivated: more of them say they will definitely show up on election day.
Age splits the city — under-40s favour Tung by a wide margin, while every group over 40 leans Hsieh, especially retirees.
Roughly 28,000 Keelung voters say they will vote but have not picked a side, and they will decide the race.
Elsewhere before the year-end local elections, the KMT–TPP alliance collapsed in Zhubei, drawing angry public attacks from influencer "Kuan Chang" Chen Chih-han.
Outlook: With under three months left, both camps will spend the final stretch chasing undecided voters, and turnout will likely matter more than the headline numbers.
Taiwan's 2026 Taipei mayor race is heating up, with the ruling DPP's candidate pushing hard for a face-to-face debate that the incumbent has so far dodged — a sign of confidence for the challenger and pressure on Chiang Wan-an.
Shen Po-yang wants to be first in line to debate Chiang Wan-an, and hopes to meet him on candidate registration day.
The line is getting longer: Kaohsiung DPP candidate Lai Jui-lung also wants a debate after Chiang questioned an Kaohsiung fishing port spending plan.
Chiang deflected, suggesting Lai should sort out his own party's rivals in Tainan first.
A poll found most Taipei residents thought Chiang's high-profile street protest flopped — a warning sign for his re-election bid.
Chiang is playing defense on a child-protection scandal after a 10-year-old girl's abuse case took 240 days to reach placement, while touting a new metro station after a decade of construction.
Outlook: Expect more sparring over whether a debate happens at all, with Chiang likely to keep avoiding a direct match-up while leaning on infrastructure wins.
Taiwan's stock market opened down hard, losing the 46,000 level, with chip stocks leading the drop — bad news for investors who bought into last week's rally.
The main index fell more than 500 points at the open, with TSMC, MediaTek, Foxconn and Delta all lower.
IC substrate maker Unimicron crashed limit-down after prosecutors raided the company over suspected relabeling of China-made boards as "Made in Taiwan"; 14 people were questioned and five released on bail.
The selloff followed a weak US session, where Fed chair Warsh sounded tough on inflation and pushed up bets on a September rate hike, hitting chip stocks hard.
Related substrate names Kinsus fell sharply while Nan Ya PCB and Zhen Ding held small gains.
The scare comes after a strong week: foreign investors poured money in on rising MSCI weightings and Nvidia's strong results, and daily turnover topped the trillion-dollar mark.
Outlook: A pullback of 500 to 600 points is seen as the near-term risk, though the broader picture stays firm and memory and passive-component stocks are being flagged as buy-the-dip candidates.
Taiwan's top IC substrate maker Unimicron crashed to the daily loss limit after prosecutors opened a probe into whether it relabelled China-made products as "Made in Taiwan," a hit to shareholders but one analysts call contained.
Unimicron opened locked at limit down with a mountain of sell orders piled up and no buyers.
Prosecutors in Taoyuan questioned 14 people over the origin-labelling case; several were released on bail, including a division head who posted a large bond.
Local analysts call this a compliance failure, not fake accounting, and see little damage to core earnings; the odds of landing on the US entity list look very low.
High-end ABF substrates are still in short supply worldwide, and rivals like Nan Ya PCB, Kinsus and Ibiden have no spare capacity to take the orders.
The wider Taiwan market fell too, dropping through 46,000 as TSMC, MediaTek and Foxconn all slid on hawkish comments from Fed chair Warsh.
Outlook: The worst case looks like fines, back taxes and criminal charges for individuals, but Taiwanese firms that have long blurred cross-strait production lines now face much tighter US scrutiny.
A Taiwanese green-energy firm has landed a $2.7 million government-backed project in Palau, a small but symbolic win for Taiwan's push to sell whole energy systems abroad — while back home Taiwan's stock market is torn between record buying and a fraud scandal.
Jkon Energy finished a combined solar, battery storage, energy management and electric-bus charging build for Palau's parliament, sports hall and education ministry, with full revenue booked in the fourth quarter.
The hard part was logistics and weather: parts had to be flown in, structures were built to survive typhoon-force winds, and the whole system had to be rewired for Palau's different voltage.
The company is shifting from plain construction work to higher-margin energy services, using Palau as a showcase and Vietnam as its base for Southeast Asia.
Taiwan's market jumped last week on strong Nvidia results and a higher MSCI weighting, with big investors pouring in and daily turnover back above a trillion Taiwan dollars.
That mood soured after Fed chair Warsh signaled he wants to keep fighting inflation, knocking chip stocks down; separately, prosecutors raided circuit-board maker Unimicron over allegedly relabeling China-made goods as "Made in Taiwan."
Outlook: Taiwan's exporters face a tightening squeeze as the US cracks down on disguised Chinese supply chains, while September's direction hinges on whether the Fed really turns hawkish.
One of the Huang sisters in Changhua politics is now confirmed to be entering the year-end election, which is bad news for the candidate already nominated by the Kuomintang (KMT) and potentially an opportunity for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Former county councillor Huang Yu-fen is weighing leaving the party to run for Changhua City mayor for a third time.
Only one of the two — she or her elder sister Huang Yu-ju — will register, and the final decision will come within the next day or two.
The KMT has already nominated Chen Wen-pin, chair of the Changhua City Council; if Huang Yu-fen runs, she must first leave the party.
Should Huang Yu-fen enter the race, the Changhua City mayoral contest would become a three-way fight between the KMT, the DPP and an independent.
In her two previous runs she won more than 37,000 votes and more than 39,000 votes respectively — her vote share rose rather than fell.
Outlook: The outcome revealed in the next day or two will determine whether the Changhua City mayoral race is a two-way showdown or a three-way contest.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun has for the first time acknowledged that the party's prospects in some cities and counties are not encouraging — bad news for Blue camp supporters and a boost for the DPP.
Cheng admitted there are "indeed problems" in Chiayi City and Changhua County, and anxious voices have surfaced within the party, though she did not respond to questions about whether she would resign if the campaign goes badly.
With Blue-White cooperation in Zhubei falling apart, she conceded she "cannot handle it," and the cracks in opposition cooperation are drawing magnified scrutiny.
A veteran media commentator named five places that could flip — Hsinchu County, Taitung County, Changhua County, Chiayi City and Yilan County — noting the DPP is more united under Tsai Ing-wen's coordination.
In New Taipei City, Blue camp candidate Lee Si-chuan leads Su Chiao-hui by only a slim margin, while in Kaohsiung, Ko Chih-en has narrowed the gap with Lai Jui-lung amid the CPC tainted-oil controversy.
Chiang Wan-an's standing has risen sharply after he initiated the Ketagalan Boulevard rally, and he is seen as the Blue camp's new leading figure, which also affects Lu Shiow-yen and the positioning for 2028.
Outlook: With less than three months to the 2026 elections, the internal Blue camp contest over direction and candidates is expected to keep intensifying, and Cheng Li-wun's position as party chair hinges on whether several key cities and counties can be held.
Taiwan's Pingtung county has another corruption scandal, this time with a fugitive twist that is bad news for local government's reputation.
Chen Ya-lin, once Taiwan's youngest township chief at 32, got 8 years in prison for taking kickbacks on public works contracts.
Police have now put him on the wanted list after he repeatedly failed to show up for his appeal hearing.
He used aides as middlemen to rig bids, leaking bidder details so pre-picked firms would win, then collected a cut of each contract.
He is the fourth Fangliao township chief in a row caught up in a corruption case, which has locals talking.
After losing his re-election bid he moved into politics-adjacent work, joining a public relations firm run by a former Taiwan People's Party secretary-general.
Outlook: The appeal cannot move forward while he stays out of reach, so the manhunt is the next thing to watch.
China has punished the Pacific island nation of Palau for hosting Taiwan's foreign minister by labeling it unsafe for Chinese tourists, a hit to Palau's tourism economy and another sign Beijing is using travel as a weapon.
Palau's president said China put the country on an unsafe-travel list in retaliation for Taiwan foreign minister Lin Chia-lung's visit.
Taiwan's foreign ministry condemned the move as turning tourism into a political weapon and economic pressure tool.
Palau is one of the few countries that still formally recognizes Taiwan instead of China, making it a repeat target.
Taiwan says it will help Palau rebuild its tourism industry and find visitors from other countries.
Outlook: Expect Palau to lean harder on Taiwan, Japan and the US for tourists and aid as Beijing keeps up the squeeze.
Taiwan's opposition alliance between the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party has collapsed over a mayoral race, a setback for both parties heading into the November local elections.
Talks over who would run for mayor of Zhubei fell apart, and the TPP is now running its own candidate rather than stepping aside.
TPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang accused the KMT of breaking its promise, and both parties will now split the opposition vote.
Streamer Chen Chih-han, known as "Kuan Chang," publicly turned on the KMT and told voters to throw the party out this year.
His anger traces back to the KMT caving on central budget fights after he had backed its lawmakers during last year's recall campaign.
Online reaction was largely mocking, with critics calling him a turncoat and pointing to his own shifting allegiances.
Outlook: With 90 days left, a divided opposition makes things easier for the ruling DPP unless the two parties patch things up.
Taiwan's ruling DPP is closing ranks in Kaohsiung with 90 days to go before the mayoral vote, a boost for candidate Lai Jui-lung and a growing problem for his KMT rival.
The Kaohsiung support groups for both President Lai Ching-te and former president Tsai Ing-wen have joined Lai Jui-lung's campaign in senior roles.
Chuang Wei-chou, a national policy adviser and respected figure in Kaohsiung's medical community, will lead the campaign's doctors, pharmacists and nurses alliance.
Huang Lai-chin, head of the Tsai support group in Kaohsiung, is pulling in business owners, trade groups and civic clubs to widen the base beyond the party's usual voters.
Both presidents are campaigning in the south in person, with Mayor Chen Chi-mai and local lawmakers also taking campaign posts.
The combined push puts real pressure on KMT candidate Ko Chih-en, who lacks a comparable machine.
Outlook: Expect the DPP to keep expanding its network into business and professional circles over the final three months, making Kaohsiung an uphill fight for the KMT.
Taiwan is deepening its ties with Palau through green energy projects, a win for both countries as Taiwan works to hold onto one of its few remaining diplomatic allies.
Taiwan's foreign minister Lin Chia-lung joined Palau's president Surangel Whipps Jr. to launch a joint hydrogen energy program.
Four Taiwan-made electric buses were handed over and will carry leaders arriving for the Pacific Islands Forum summit.
Palau's main government building now runs on solar panels and battery storage, which also charge the bus fleet.
The projects support Palau's goal of running fully on renewable energy by 2032 and cut its reliance on imported fuel.
For Taiwan, the aid is also diplomacy: Palau is one of a shrinking number of countries that still recognize it.
Outlook: Expect Taiwan to keep using clean-energy and infrastructure projects to shore up support in the Pacific as China courts the same island states.
Taiwan's latest offshore wind tender is drawing a thin field of bidders, a warning sign for the country's clean energy build-out, though the two European giants that do show up look set for a head-to-head fight.
Bids for Taiwan's 3.6 GW offshore wind round close at the end of September, with wind farms due to connect to the grid around 2030 and 2031.
The crowded scramble of past rounds has not materialized, leaving a much smaller pool of developers.
Denmark's Ørsted and CIP are both expected to bid with projects that sit on overlapping patches of sea, setting up a direct clash.
To stop developers bidding at zero and then struggling to fund projects, Taiwan added a guaranteed minimum price per unit of power, giving banks a floor for lending.
Several abandoned wind farm sites are being folded back in as bonus capacity, but only for developers who first win a normal slot.
Outlook: With bidding closing in September, the main question is whether Ørsted and CIP both file and how Taiwan settles the overlap between their sites.
Taiwan's Taipei mayor race has spilled overseas, with Taiwanese expats in Japan organizing for challenger Shen Po-yang — a sign his campaign is gaining momentum against the incumbent.
More than 80 Taiwanese expats and Japanese guests met in Osaka to back Shen Po-yang's run for Taipei mayor.
The Osaka event warms up for a bigger national gathering in Tokyo on September 12.
Shen joined by video and asked Taiwanese living in Japan to spread his ideas through social media to friends and family back home.
He says the polling gap with sitting mayor Chiang Wan-an is closing fast as voters get to know him.
Japanese local politicians attended too, with organizers pitching the group as a bridge between Taiwan and Japan on disaster planning, transport and urban renewal.
Outlook: Attention now shifts to the Tokyo rally in September, where Shen's overseas campaign push will get its biggest test.
A cross-party group of Italian lawmakers is landing in Taiwan and will meet President Lai Ching-te, a boost for Taiwan's standing in Europe and an irritant for Beijing.
Senate Deputy Speaker Gian Marco Centinaio is leading 10 Italian lawmakers, the biggest and most cross-party delegation Italy's parliament has ever sent to Taipei.
The group spans both governing and opposition parties, signalling support for Taiwan that cuts across Italian politics.
Centinaio says keeping the Taiwan Strait as it is now is the starting point for peace in the Indo-Pacific, and that there must be no sign of backing down under threats.
The delegation will also meet Taiwanese business and cultural figures and open Italy's pavilion at the SEMICON Taiwan chip show — a nod to chips and trade as the real glue.
Outlook: Expect talks focused on trade, chips and Indo-Pacific security, and a sharp protest from Beijing.
Support for Taipei Mayor Shen Po-yang has spread to Puli in Nantou County, where residents have formed their own support association to drum up votes for him — positive news for his political momentum.
A group of Puli residents has set up a LINE group as a support association, sharing updates on Shen Po-yang every day and rallying votes for him.
Local ties are key: Shen Po-yang's mother is from Puli and once taught English at Puli Elementary School. He also attended school in Puli as a child and spent his winter and summer holidays there, with older residents calling him "Puli's grandson."
County councillor Chen Yi-chun has publicly stated that she is a member of the support association, and has even named her battling top "Ocean Current" in a nod to Shen Po-yang's orange campaign colour.
That same day, Shen Po-yang appeared in Nantou at a rally for the support association of county magistrate candidate Wen Shih-cheng, publicly declaring his backing.
His signature policy proposals on ecosystems and green coverage have been well received locally, and are among the reasons supporters cite for rallying behind him.
Outlook: This cross-county wave of support could be mobilised further in next year's local elections, giving a boost to the relevant candidates in Nantou.
The DPP has set up a youth support group in Miaoli, a constituency where the party has long struggled, with Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim appearing in person to stump for its candidates — a positive sign for grassroots morale, though the odds of turning the county around remain long.
With 90 days to go before the 2026 local elections, Miaoli county magistrate candidate Chen Pin-an, Miaoli City mayoral candidate Lin Yueh-chin and Zhuolan Township mayoral candidate Chen Chun-nuan jointly launched a youth support group.
Hsiao Bi-khim drew an analogy with the spontaneous efforts of disaster-relief volunteers in Hualien, saying that as long as people are willing to act, there is still a chance for change in Miaoli.
The central government has put forward its "Balanced Taiwan" policy and the Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli Grand Silicon Valley plan, using industry and job opportunities to encourage young people to stay in their home towns.
Chen Pin-an is campaigning primarily on youth policy, including the revitalisation of old housing, subsidies for study-abroad loans, the creation of an angel fund and a youth participatory budget.
The local candidates, for their part, are focusing on attracting investment to science parks, agricultural transformation and childcare subsidies — filling in the everyday support that young people most lack after returning home.
Outlook: Miaoli has long been held by the non-green camp, and whether youth support can be converted into actual votes will be the key thing to watch over the next three months.
A Taiwanese court has rejected a family's decades-old claim that military intelligence officers killed seven men who fled China by boat, ruling the case falls outside Taiwan's transitional justice law.
Twenty-five people sailed from China to Taiwan in 1980; thirteen were allowed to stay, five went home voluntarily, and seven were sent back and never heard from again.
The seven were held at a military camp for three months, questioned, and then deported by the old Defence Ministry intelligence bureau, which the family says had no legal power to do any of it.
Relatives believe the men were pushed into the sea and left for Chinese fishing boats to find, based on wording in old intelligence files.
The court said border control of outsiders is different from crushing dissent at home, so the transitional justice law does not apply, and found no proof the men were dumped at sea.
A Chinese court declared the seven dead in 2008; the family had first taken the case to Taiwan's transitional justice body in 2022.
Outlook: The family can still appeal, but without new evidence the fate of the seven men is likely to stay unresolved.
Taiwan's parliament has set a record for staying in session while letting more than 180 budget and regulatory items expire past their legal review deadlines, a bad sign for government oversight and defense spending.
Budget bills, final accounts, and administrative rules from the foreign ministry, cabinet, and defense ministry sat unreviewed until their deadlines passed.
A parliamentary watchdog group blames the KMT-TPP majority for stalling, saying the paralysis is a collective party choice, not one lawmaker's doing.
Local leaders like Taipei's Chiang Wan-an and Taichung's Lu Shiu-yen are accused of looking the other way while their party's lawmakers block business.
Defense funding is among the casualties, raising security concerns at a time of pressure from China.
Outlook: The watchdog is urging voters to treat this year's local elections as an early verdict on the opposition, warning the deadlock could otherwise run another year and a half.
Taiwan's two opposition parties are fighting in public over who gets to run for mayor of Zhubei, a bad sign for their plan to team up in this year's local elections.
The KMT and the TPP failed to agree on a joint candidate for Zhubei, and the TPP is now running its own man, Chiu Chen-yuan.
TPP leader Huang Kuo-chang says there was an understanding that his party would get the mayor's race, and accuses the KMT of burning the whole forest for one tree.
Ko Wen-je is pushing both party chairs to explain what was actually agreed and to clean up the mess quickly.
KMT chair Cheng Li-wun says the two sides simply read the local situation differently, and insists the alliance itself is intact.
Outlook: Both sides say they still want to cooperate for the late-2026 elections, but the trust damage will make future candidate deals harder.
Taiwan's People's Party has been hit by an internal rift ahead of the nine-in-one local elections, with a founding member of the party going public with criticism — bad news both for Blue-White cooperation and for the party's electoral prospects.
The TPP blocked Tsai Pi-ju from running for Changhua County magistrate, then switched at the eleventh hour before registration to back Lai Yin-chu, deputy director of the party's Changhua branch.
Founding member Chu Hui-jung accused Ko Wen-je and Huang Kuo-chang of refusing to let Tsai run even though they knew she was leading in the polls, calling it tantamount to workplace bullying.
The original argument that "a small party lacks the capacity to contest a magistracy" was reversed overnight, prompting claims that the leadership would rather field a puppet than let a party stalwart stand.
With the Blue-White alliance simultaneously standing down in New Taipei, dodging the question in Yilan and constrained in Hsinchu, the sudden move to plant a flag in Changhua has cast doubt on the sincerity of the cooperation.
Outlook: With the nomination registration deadline approaching, continued infighting within the TPP could make Blue-White coordination even harder to negotiate in a number of counties and cities.
Taiwan's parliament wrapped up its session with a record-long extension but still left a huge pile of budgets unreviewed, which is bad for government agencies and state-run companies waiting on money.
The main national budget finally passed after being held up for more than 350 days, but state-owned company budgets and special funds — worth roughly twice as much — are still stuck.
Watchdog group Citizen Congress Watch called the tactics shameful, saying the opposition is starving the government of money to make it look incompetent.
Utilities like CPC and Taipower cannot launch new energy or technology projects while their budgets sit unapproved.
Over 180 budget, audit, and administrative items blew past their legal review deadlines despite the longest session extension on record.
Agencies are now spending cautiously, fearing that any money used will be cut in retaliation later.
Outlook: With state company budgets still unreviewed, Taiwan risks repeating the 2013 stalemate where approval dragged to the end of the year, slowing government operations further.
Taipei police say a viral claim that a Chinese agent was monitoring public opinion inside the city's main metro station was a false alarm, easing a security scare but showing how jumpy Taiwan has become about Chinese infiltration.
A social media post showed a man standing on the platform at Taipei Main Station with a laptop, sparking claims he was doing Chinese opinion-monitoring work.
Police opened an overnight investigation, pulled security camera footage and identified him within hours.
He turned out to be a man in his 40s waiting for a friend and listening to a live-streamed investing course while he killed time.
The instructor's odd online handle, which uses military-sounding wording, appears to have fuelled the suspicion.
The man said he did not know he was being filmed, and police found his account matched the evidence.
Outlook: The case is closed as a misunderstanding, but similar scares are likely as Taiwanese online users stay alert to suspected Chinese activity.
Taiwan's opposition alliance between the KMT and the smaller TPP has broken down in the Zhubei mayoral race, a setback for both parties heading into local elections.
Ko Wen-je, who founded the TPP, called on the two party chairs to meet quickly and clean up the mess.
He said KMT Hsinchu County candidate Hsu Hsin-ying should explain her own position in person instead of sending a spokesperson.
Hsu's office insists her stance on cooperating has never changed and she will follow any agreement reached.
Ko made the remarks while campaigning with TPP Zhubei candidate Chiu Chen-yuan at a summer water party.
On prosecutors dropping the Hsinchu baseball stadium case against former mayor Lin Chih-chien, Ko said courts are the last line of defence and must stay fair.
Outlook: Whether the two parties can still split candidates without competing depends on a face-to-face meeting between their chairs in the coming days.
Taiwan and the Philippines are deepening a long-running firefighter training partnership, a quiet win for both governments as Manila tries to rebuild trust in its public safety system.
Philippine interior undersecretary Jed Patrick Mabilog credited Taiwan with sharpening the country's disaster response, tying it to Marcos Jr.'s "Bagong Pilipinas" reform push.
More than 500 Filipino volunteer firefighters have trained in Taiwan since 2010; this year 32 came from over 18 volunteer groups across Manila, Tarlac, Tacloban, Iloilo and Bacolod.
The threat is broader than fire — earthquakes, typhoons, landslides and building collapses all land on the same crews.
This year's course went advanced, adding earthquake and tunnel rescue plus electric-vehicle crashes, as EVs spread and new rail projects come online.
Manila wants to fold scattered volunteer brigades into the national public safety system to strengthen its fire bureau.
Outlook: Both sides expect the training pipeline to widen into search-and-rescue, technology and leadership exchanges, giving Taiwan a durable foothold in Southeast Asian disaster diplomacy.
Cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party in local elections has shown cracks in Zhubei, Hsinchu County, and in Changhua — bad news for the two parties' plan to join forces against the Democratic Progressive Party.
Talks on the nomination for Zhubei mayor are on the verge of collapse, and the TPP also plans to field its own candidate in the Changhua county magistrate race.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen has voiced strong support for cooperation, stressing that "together we both gain; apart we both lose."
Chiang Chi-chen said cooperation between parties takes time to bed in, that the keys are sincerity and mutual trust, and that the parties must return to "putting the people first."
Conditions differ from place to place, making integration difficult; Lu Shiow-yen said she has sought advice from TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang.
Outlook: The two parties will continue negotiating, but the disputes over candidates in Zhubei and Changhua are unlikely to be resolved in the near term.
A wave of support building for the DPP's likely Taipei challenger is putting pressure on mayor Chiang Wan-an — bad for the KMT, good for the DPP's chances in the capital.
The surge behind the green-camp challenger, dubbed the "ocean current," is gathering speed in Taipei.
Chiang Wan-an, once seen as safe for re-election, now looks vulnerable in his own city.
The KMT is already lining up its 2028 presidential bid, and Chiang is central to that plan.
Losing Taipei would knock out the party's main stepping stone to the presidency.
Outlook: The 2026 Taipei mayoral race is shaping up as the test that decides whether the KMT's 2028 plan holds together.
Taiwan's government is telling citizens with human rights or political backgrounds to think hard before flying to China — a warning aimed at anyone who has worked for an NGO or in politics.
A Taiwanese man was held and questioned for six hours on arrival in Shanghai over past part-time work for Amnesty International.
Questions covered his duties, contacts with politicians and activists, and any work touching China, Hong Kong, the Uyghurs or Tibet; he was let go only after agreeing to turn around and fly home.
His family believes Chinese security services keep lists of people tied to international rights groups, and that he was flagged at the border without knowing it.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council says even people who left politics or activism years ago have later drawn long prison sentences in China.
Outlook: China brings in new entry and exit rules on Sept. 15 that Taipei expects to make crossings riskier still, so more travel warnings are likely.
A war of words has broken out again among Taiwan's Blue, White and Green camps. Ko Wen-je attributed his falling-out with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, while veteran media commentator Huang Chih-hsien said he simply wanted power for himself — a negative round of image-based attack and defence for the Taiwan People's Party (TPP).
Speaking in Changhua, Ko Wen-je said his break with the DPP began with the Keelung light rail project: Tsai Ing-wen announced an investment of NT$8.1 billion, but construction never got under way.
He questioned what the NT$880 billion Forward-looking budget had actually built, and where the money had gone.
He also recounted that a DPP city government official had once told him privately that the Kuomintang (KMT) is corrupt, but the DPP is even more ruthless about it.
Huang Chih-hsien countered that Ko had wanted the DPP to stand aside for him again while refusing to join the party, and so formed his own party in order to be his own boss.
The Keelung light rail was in fact cancelled in 2020 over right-of-way and ridership problems and upgraded to the Keelung MRT; preliminary works began late last year, with the line targeted to open in 2034.
Outlook: Mutual accusations of this kind are expected to intensify as the next election season approaches, and the results of the Forward-looking budget will continue to be dug up for scrutiny.
Taiwan's big chip show opens this week with light-based chip connections as the star, good news for TSMC, Nvidia, and the Taiwanese suppliers riding the AI buildout.
AI data centers need far more data speed than copper wiring can deliver, so the industry is switching to optical links.
TSMC's photonics platform and its work with Nvidia on new networking switches are the main draw, with production ramping now.
Nvidia and Broadcom are already shipping these optical switches, meaning the technology has moved from lab to mass production.
Taiwanese firms including UMC, Foxconn, ASE, and Powertech are all racing to add capacity, spreading the AI money further down the supply chain.
The show is set for record size, with more than 1,300 exhibitors and over 100,000 people expected.
Outlook: Expect 2026 to be the year optical chip connections scale up, lifting orders across Taiwan's chip supply chain.
Taiwan's opposition alliance between the KMT and the smaller TPP has broken down in the Zhubei city mayor race, a setback for both parties hoping to avoid splitting their vote.
Talks over a joint candidate in Zhubei collapsed, leaving the two opposition parties running against each other.
Ko Wen-je, who founded the TPP, said the KMT's Hsinchu County candidate Hsu Hsin-ying should explain her own position in person instead of sending a spokesperson.
He called on TPP chair Huang Kuo-chang and KMT chair Cheng Li-wun to meet quickly and clean up the mess.
Hsu Hsin-ying's office says her stance on cooperating has not changed and she will follow any deal the parties reach.
On the Hsinchu baseball stadium case, where former mayor Lin Chih-chien and others were cleared, Ko Wen-je said the courts are the country's last line of defense and must stay fair for people to trust them.
Outlook: Pressure now sits on the two party chairs to strike a deal before the local election lineup is locked in.