Latest news with #TVBS
AFP
2 days ago
- Politics
- AFP
Baseless posts about Taiwanese army recruit from Africa spread online
The Douyin post published on July 5, 2025 shares an image taken from a report by broadcaster TVBS showing a black man in a Taiwanese military uniform. "Due to recruitment difficulties in the Taiwan province, this black man was able to join the Taiwanese army," text on the image reads in simplified Chinese. The post's caption largely repeats the false claim and has been shared more than 7,500 times. Image Screenshot of the false post taken on July 24, 2025, with a red X added by AFP As pressure from China increases, Taiwanese politicians and security experts have been talking about bringing in foreign fighters to help fill troops shortage, according to The Telegraph and Radio Free Asia (archived here and here). The proposal, however, is still in its early stages. Taiwan's Defence Minister Wellington Koo previously said in 2024 they have not considered this option (archived link). Taiwan lives under constant fear of a Chinese invasion, as Beijing claims the island as part of its territory to be reunited one day, by force if necessary. Taiwan approved two separate pay increases for voluntary military service members in March and June in a bid to address a manpower shortage and retain soldiers in the face of Chinese military pressure (archived link). Under former president Tsai Ing-wen, the self-ruled island also extended the mandatory military service for men to one year up from four months and allowed women into reservist training (archived link). The false claim also surfaced elsewhere on Weibo, X and TikTok. Keyword searches on Google found the screenshot was taken from a video report by Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS titled "African man in army uniform! Man from African ally came to Taiwan and joined military academy, graduated as second lieutenant" (archived link). It said the man is a military exchange student from Eswatini -- the only African nation that maintains formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan (archived link). The scene in the false post can be seen at the 10-second mark in the TVBS report. Image Screenshot comparison of the false Douyin post (left) and original clip from TVBS news (right) The R.O.C. Military Academy told AFP that the student -- Lindikhaya Xavier Manyisa -- has since returned home and did not join Taiwan's army. Local media also reported in previous years that the academy accepted other students from Eswatini under an exchange programme (archived here and here). Taiwan Factcheck Center has also debunked the false claim (archived link). AFP has previously debunked misinformation about the Taiwan military here.
NHK
07-07-2025
- Climate
- NHK
Severe Tropical Storm Danas makes landfall in Taiwan
Severe Tropical Storm Danas made landfall on Taiwan's main island on Sunday. The storm has left two people dead and more than 300 injured. Local weather officials say Severe Tropical Storm Danas made landfall in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan, at around 11:40 p.m. They say the storm headed north and moved to the East China Sea at around 6 a.m. on Monday. Taiwanese TV station TVBS reported that intense winds and rain caused branches of roadside trees to sway and some buildings partially collapsed. Fire services and other sources say a 69-year-old man died in the southern city of Tainan when his vehicle was hit by a fallen tree. A 60-year-old patient recuperating at home in the city died because his ventilator stopped in a power outage. Authorities say 334 people were injured over a wide area, mostly in southern Taiwan. Transportation has also been affected. A total of 138 flights, or about half of the daily total within Taiwan, were canceled on Monday. Some flights between Taiwan and other destinations, including China, have also been canceled. Taiwanese weather authorities say strong winds and rain are expected to continue until Monday night.
CNA
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
Taiwanese actors Esther Liu and Simon Lian announce marriage and pregnancy
Taiwanese actress Esther Liu, 36, and actor Simon Lian, 33, are now married, with Liu also currently three months pregnant, according to Taiwanese TV channel TVBS News. The actress-singer, best known for her roles in the dramas Chinese Paladin as well as Westside Story, had announced the news on Instagram on Monday (Jun 9). She said: 'Thank you Simon Lian, thank you to our children, thank you to the world for giving me the ordinary and extraordinary. Please bless and protect us.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Esther Liu 劉品言 (@esther88) Lian, who was a former member of Taiwanese boyband SpeXial from 2014 to 2017, also shared the good news on his Instagram account on Jun 10. He said: 'Thank you for embracing me with your laughter that can be heard from 1km away. I also believe our baby will be the same as you, laughing can make the whole world beautiful (in part with loving food). 'Next, I will use all my love to love you and our baby. We will be very happy and sincerely share this joy with everyone! Thank you everyone.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by 連晨翔©Simon (@hsiang_5208) According to TVBS News on, the pair's relationship started after co-starring in TVBS' original 2024 series The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, also known as San Francisco Beauty Salon. The two played childhood sweethearts who have been quarrelling since they were young. Liu, who was a member of the musical duo Sweety with Joanne Tseng, admitted that she was attracted by Lian's appearance at first, according to TVBS News. After getting to know him, she found that he was someone who would show his vulnerability and the two later slowly got familiar with each other. Lian's meticulous care for Liu's foot injury at the beginning of the year also made her determined to spend the rest of her life with Lian. It was also reported that Lian had initially thought that Liu was a very strong person, but after getting to know her and discovering her feminine side, it made him unconsciously want to protect her. The two shared that they currently have no plans to hold a wedding banquet, and are expected to welcome their baby by the end of the year. According to Taiwan media outlets, Liu was also previously in a relationship with Ethan Juan, her co-star in the Taiwanese TV series Green Forest, My Home in 2005, when she was just 17 years old.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Taiwan, Late To The Drone Boat Game, To Hold Major Capability Test
Faced with the growing threat of an invasion by the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwanese military and industrial leaders will hold a two-day demonstration of uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). Scheduled for June 17 and June 18, the demonstration is designed to help speed up the island nation's maritime drone production, a spokesman for the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said. The move comes amid a surprising dearth of Taiwanese USVs, also known as drone boats, despite warnings from U.S. and Taiwanese officials that China could feel confident in its ability to launch a successful armed intervention against Taiwan by 2027, if not earlier. Such a conflict, as we previously reported, 'would likely become a huge drone war, with China also having made its own substantial investments in loitering munitions and swarming technologies in recent years. Chinese drones are proliferating in the air, on the ground, and at sea, and everything points to the mass use of uncrewed systems being a deciding factor in a conflict between Taiwan and China, something that has been enforced by the lessons of influential war games.' The drone boat demonstration will be hosted by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), Taiwan's top military research organization. It will take part in two phases, according to NCIST. 'Participating companies will first showcase their technologies through static displays featuring models, video presentations, and equipment exhibits at Lungteh Shipbuilding's Plant No. 6 facility,' the Taiwanese TVBS news outlet reported. 'The program will then transition to live operational demonstrations at the Jiugongli Viewing Platform, where manufacturers will establish shoreline control stations to direct unmanned vessels through real-world missions including surveillance operations and long-distance navigation tests.' The goal is to inform future military procurement specifications to expand Taiwan's drone boat fleet, the outlet noted. 'The initiative represents a significant milestone in Taiwan's broader strategy to modernize its naval defense capabilities amid regional security challenges,' TVBS posited. Spurred in part by the success of Ukraine's drone boat development, Taiwan is starting to build its own USVs. In March, we reported that Taiwan unveiled a domestically produced drone boat called the Endeavor Manta. Somewhat surprisingly, this was said to be the first of its kind to have been developed. Endeavor Manta's existence was disclosed by Taiwan's China Shipbuilding Corporation (CSBC Corp.), which produces ships and submarines for military and civilian use, during a launch event held in the port of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. The event included a demonstration of the USV's at-sea capabilities. You can read more about that USV and its specifications in our original story here. NCSIST is also developing its own attack drone boat called the Kuai Chi. Details about its specifications are sparse. 'Although appearing similar to USVs being produced by private manufacturers, the Kuai Chi attack drone boat's internal guidance and control systems as well as other core technologies, are developed and produced entirely in-house by the NCSIST, ' Taiwan's CNA news agency reported. The Kuai Chi will not take part in the NCSIST demonstration. That's 'due to the sensitive nature of the project,' Sun Chun-ching, an official with the Systems Development Center at the NCSIST, told reporters during a Ministry of National Defense (MND) briefing on Wednesday. The Kuai Chi will likely undergo separate combat evaluations next month, according to CNA. Following that, the USV will be 'demonstrated to the military during a precision live-fire missile drill at Jiupeng Base in Pingtung County in August,' CNA suggested. The planned demonstration 'will simulate a battlefield scenario where the NCSIST drone boat engages various surface targets.' If those trials are successful, the Kuai Chi could be introduced to the public during the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, Sun added. The NCSIST demonstration will feature several drone boats being developed by private industry, Sun explained. 12 firms will enter the June USV demonstration in Yilan, Taiwan, with 4 live demonstrations (Thunder Tiger, Carbon-Based Technologies, Corum, and Lung Teh) and 8 additional static displays (JetSea AI, GEOSAT, Robuff, Ocean Aero, MARTAC, DSRG, Auterion, and HII).(Up Media) — Taiwan Defense News Tracker (@TaiwansDefense) May 28, 2025 All this comes as Taiwan is planning to build out its first-ever army drone units later this year, The Wall Street Journal reported. It is part of a broader push to modernize its forces amid escalating threats from China. The move builds on a similar initiative by the country's Marine Corps, which has already converted several tank and artillery battalions into drone units, Defense Minister Wellington Koo told the Journal. The step reflects Taiwan's growing focus on asymmetric warfare, leveraging smaller, more innovative, and more agile systems to counter the overwhelming scale of Beijing's military in the event of an invasion. 'It would be best if China wakes up every day feeling like 'today's just not the day to invade,'' Koo stated. Beyond concerns about a full-on invasion of Taiwan in the next two years, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) recently suggested that the PRC could also try to squeeze Taiwan by attacking two small islands close to the mainland. 'China possesses a variety of military options to coerce Taiwan, including increasing the frequency and scope of China's military presence operations, air and maritime blockades, seizure of Taiwan's smaller outlying islands, joint firepower strikes, and a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan,' the DIA said in its 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment released earlier this month. Ukraine has proven the value of asymmetrical weapons like drone boats, having largely pinned down Russia's Black Sea Fleet and taken out fixed and rotary aviation with its fleet of USVs. You can see a documentary about Ukraine's sea drone effort below. While Ukraine has a very well-developed drone boat fleet, Taiwan has yet to field any operationally. It remains to be seen whether Taipei's growing urgency about its own drone boat development will provide a viable threat to China within the projected timelines of a potential PRC attack. While these small explosive-laden drone boats have their tactical disadvantages, they are uniquely well suited to making an invasion of Taiwan much harder for the Beijing's forces. Defending against them is possible in many circumstances, but doing so takes resources and attention, and can limit a ship's maneuvering. They also pose a threat to shore targets, like ships at dock and harbor facilities. When working in numbers, the proposition of stopping them becomes much harder. Taiwan could flood the channel with these weapons as one measure to at least slow a cross-channel invasion operation and increase its 'cost,' which serves as a different. While line-of-sight and satellite datalinks to control these boats can be disrupted via electronic warfare, which China's is increasingly adept at, and can help in an enemy's detection of their presence, the infusion of basic artificial intelligence will make those communications unnecessary in the near future. That is if the user is willing to accept the moral implications of allowing autonomous weapons to choose their own targets. This would make defending against these types of vessel much more challenging, leaving hard kill as the only option once they are deployed. Taken as a whole, it is somewhat concerning that Taiwan hasn't done everything possible to procure lethal drone boats, especially considering their relevance in a cross-strait conflict and their area-denial performance in the Black Sea. It also fits directly with the U.S. vision of turning the strait into a kamikaze drone 'hellscape,' not just to inflict damage on China's Navy in a war there, but to deter one from starting. So, this seems to be a case of better late than never, and this exercise should help spur further growth in this sector. But even then, Taiwan needs to get very serious about procuring these capabilities quickly, potentially including from external sources. Contact the author: howard@
CNA
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
Emerald Hill actor Xiu Jie Kai recognised by tourists in Taiwan
Blockbuster drama series Emerald Hill may have wrapped its run in Singapore, but fans clearly have not forgotten the show or its cast. Especially not Taiwanese actor Xiu Jie Kai who played Zhang Jin He, better known as the er shao ye (second son) of the Zhang family. In a video posted on YouTube, the 42-year-old was out shopping with his wife, Taiwanese actress, Alyssa Chia, 50, when a woman suddenly exclaimed in Mandarin, 'Little Nonya?' Emerald Hill is a spin-off of the 2008 mega hit The Little Nonya, and it appears that this group of fans, likely Singaporeans, instantly recognised Jie Kai. Caught off guard, Xiu gave an embarrassed smile while Chia smirked and playfully confirmed their suspicions, teasing, 'Yes, you guessed correctly! Go get his autograph quickly' before cheekily stepping aside to let her husband deal with the excited fans. Of course, it was all in good fun as Chia was seen helping them take pictures as Xiu proudly introduced her as his wife. Wait, shouldn't Chia be in the shot too? She is also an established actress in her own right, even winning a Golden Horse award for Best Actress in 2021. As she walked away, Chia mused with a laugh, 'Wah… Xiu Jie Kai is very popular now. Being with him, I feel the pressure.' A proud-looking Xiu then caught up with her and said: 'Now you know how happy you will feel when we go out together?' With Emerald Hill now airing on Taiwan's TVBS 42, and continuing to be a major hit much like in Singapore and Malaysia, fan encounters like this might become the new normal for Xiu. The series has already racked up more than 1.77 million views on TVBS' social media platforms since it debuted on Apr 6.
