Like-minded coalitions of major states are increasingly unable to counter Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taiwan at international institutions
As Taiwan’s dignity and regional air safety are compromised due to silly political games at the ICAO assembly in Montreal, news emerged yesterday that Taiwan’s attempt to participate as an observer at another international organization, Interpol, is also “not going well.”
Once again, it is expected that Taiwan’s ability to join multilateral organizations are being frustrated by Beijing, which appears to be delivering on its threat to punish Taiwan for the new government’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus and “one China.”
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Only when the international community stops looking at Taiwan through the China lens will those motivations be fully understood
Taiwan isn’t just an orphan: it is a misunderstood orphan. Due to its international isolation, a dwindling presence by foreign media personnel and a self-inflicted inability by successive governments (including the current one) to make the proper investments in public diplomacy, it is often ignored. And when it is not, what is said or written about it is quite often downright wrong.
One of the most oft-repeated fallacies in international media coverage and analysis of Taiwan is the notion that everything the Taiwanese do is in relation to China, that changing weather patterns in Taiwan, if you will, occur because a butterfly batted its wings somewhere in Guangdong.
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The decision yet again demonstrates China's ability to coerce international institutions into making decision that go against their very mandate, putting politics before public health and safety
The Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has refused to invite Taiwan to attend its upcoming triennial assembly, sparking a strong protest by Taipei on Friday, which called the decision "extremely unfair to Taiwan and a major loss to global aviation safety."
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More and more, the South China Morning Post’s editorials read as if they were drafted in Beijing. Here’s an example
Following Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s (馬雲) acquisition of the 113-year-old Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post last year, many questions were raised as to whether the move would have an impact on the paper’s editorial line.
The paper had been bleeding independent minds for years and editorial pressure existed well before Mr. Ma took over. Still, the pro-Beijing line became more apparent, and earlier this year the SCMP was one of the few news organizations that were given access to the ostensibly staged “confessions” of Chinese activists. Under Mr. Ma’s watch, the online version of the paper also became free.
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A recent report by the ‘China Times’ claims Taiwan has decided to abandon efforts to develop a medium-range missile that could hit Beijing or Shanghai. While aborting the program would make sense, Taipei won’t be doing so for the reasons stated in the article
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Tuesday denied claims by the Chinese-language China Times that Taiwan has decided to scrap efforts to develop a medium-range surface-to-surface missile capable of hitting Beijing and Shanghai as a “goodwill gesture to China.”
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For far too long we have allowed the tyrant child to determine our actions. This must stop. We must stop fearing it
Here we go again, the old tired accusations of “broken promises” and damage done to China’s “core interests” after European Union parliamentarians met with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on European soil on Sept. 15.
For a country that constantly reminds us of its glorious 5,000 years of history, its leadership behaves very much like a 12-year-old: pouting and bullying when it doesn’t get what it wants. To be perfectly honest, it’s rather embarrassing and hardly warrants the space and scare quotes it gets in the world’s media. (I see what you’re thinking: I’m also guilty of giving it space here, but bear with me for a second and I will get to the point.)
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Beijing is seeking to undermine the authority of Taiwan’s central government by creating bilateral dependencies and sowing division within society. It has been going on for quite a while
Top representatives from eight municipalities in Taiwan controlled by the pan-blue camp visited China at the weekend for talks with Chinese officials and to promote tourism and agricultural produce as Beijing shows Taipei the cold shoulder for its refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus.
Besides belonging to the same camp — six of the eight city and county government heads belong to the Kuomintang (KMT) and two others are blue-leaning independents — all eight representatives have stated they recognize the “1992 consensus,” which an inflexible Beijing has set as a precondition for cross-Strait exchanges.
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Attacked for her dual nationality, Democratic Party deputy head Renho is in a race to abandon her ROC citizenship. And did she or did she not say that Taiwan is not a country?
Democratic Party deputy head Murata Renho (村田蓮舫), a half-Japanese and half-Taiwanese politician who is locked in a three-way race to assume leadership of the DP in Sept. 15 elections, revealed on Tuesday that she has yet to renounce her Republic of China citizenship.
Under attack for her dual citizenship, the politician, who goes by Renho, admitted on Tuesday that she had not, as previously stated, relinquished her ROC citizenship at the age of 17.
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'We need to stop using smearing language about Chinese people, especially on the Internet’
As tour operators prepare to protest next Monday to call on the Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration to help the sagging tourism industry, a spokesman for the Travel Agent Association of the R.O.C. Taiwan attributes a drop in Chinese tourists to online rudeness by the Taiwanese.
Ringo Lee (李奇嶽), spokesman for the Association, said on Wednesday that dwindling numbers in Chinese arrivals to Taiwan were not the result of a decision by Chinese authorities to punish the Tsai administration for refusing to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus,” but rather “smearing language” used by Taiwanese netizens to refer to Chinese people.
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The CCP’s gradual descent into regulatory madness suggests that it is losing its grip on reality and on the people whom it seeks to control
For all its many accomplishments over the years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still has serious self-confidence issues. Like any other autocrat before it, this has led the CCP to impose a wide set of restrictions on what ordinary people and the media are allowed to say.
China under President Xi Jinping (習近平) is going through a period of tightening rules and an intensifying clampdown on civil society, lawyers, journalists, and the entertainment industry, in a campaign that has primarily targeted the “pollution” of Western ideals.
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