If you can’t control the message, take that control away from your opponent by making sure the message gets lost
While analysts continue to pay close attention to the increasingly frequent passages by People’s Liberation Army vessels and aircraft near Taiwan, an equally important development is the ongoing saturation of Taiwan with information to overwhelm the population and create a sense of permanent crisis.
With every sign suggesting that President Xi Jinping will tighten the screws on Taiwan prior to—and possibly after—the 19th National Congress later this year, we can expect an uptick in PLA operations, including intrusions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone and other forms of signalling meant to intimidate Taiwan. These exercises reinforce notions of powerlessness and inevitability, as well as serve to incrementally “normalize” such passages by the PLA by making them routine.
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China isn’t ready to take Taiwan by force, and its efforts to win over the Taiwanese with economic incentives have failed. Beijing’s next option is to slowly destroy the polity that stands in the way of the real estate it seeks to acquire
Faced with a obstinate population that refuses to be annexed, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears to have run out of options in its quest to unify Taiwan with China. Beijing’s approach to date, an alternating mix of coercion and sweeteners, has not yielded the dividends it was hoping for. In fact, both approaches seem to have had the opposite effect and, along with other factors, have contributed to a deepening identification with Taiwan among the island-nation’s 23.5 million people. Therefore, barring an unlikely break with longstanding trends in Taiwanese society, “peaceful unification” — which is contingent on both sides agreeing on the benefits of such an arrangement — doesn’t seem feasible for the foreseeable future.
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Temple operators in Taiwan appear to have become the latest targets in a disinformation campaign intended to discredit the administration
A suspected disinformation campaign targeting the Tsai Ing-wen administration appears to have intensified in recent weeks with false reports circulating that the central government is preparing to issue directives to strictly regulate local buddhist and taoist temples across Taiwan and ban the burning of incense.
According to information that began circulating three weeks ago, which several people in southern parts of Taiwan have received via text messages, the Tsai administration is mulling new regulations which would force temple operators nationwide to obtain permission from a “Department of Religious Affairs” to hold religious gatherings and perform chants at funeral services. Temples would also be ordered to declare their income tax, and the burning of incense would henceforth be banned. Failure to abide by the new rules, it said, would result in prosecution.
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The unfortunate scenes we have witnessed in recent days are not what parliament is all about, nor are they representative of a cherished institution that ultimately belongs to the people
Anyone who follows domestic politics in Taiwan will have seen in recent days a series of brawls pitting opposition Kuomintang lawmakers against those from the majority Democratic Progressive Party. Faces have been slapped; necks choked; water sprayed; and pieces of furniture — chairs, desks — sent flying.
The ferocious behaviour has attracted the attention of international media, which are ever on the lookout for a bit of drama. On 18 July, for example, the BBC ran a piece by its Taiwan correspondent titled “Taiwan’s brawling in parliament is a political way of life,” accompanied by a video clip with text reading “This is the Taiwanese parliament. This is the second fight within a week. The opposition party is known for getting physical to get what they want. If they oppose a piece of legislation, they fight to block it. Literally.”
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Using ‘content farms’ and other means, Chinese elements are suspected of generating much of the disinformation that has been circulating concerning the Tsai administrations’ pension reform plans. They have also helped mobilize protesters
Taiwan’s national security apparatus on Monday confirmed that a recent wave of increasingly virulent protests against President Tsai Ing-wen’s pension reform efforts have been influenced by China.
According to government information, Chinese elements (presumably agencies involved in political warfare) have played a role in mobilizing protesters and spreading disinformation about pension reform via electronic media. Various web sites, as well as the LINE instant communication tool, have been used to disseminate “fake news” about the government’s plans. The national security apparatus has confirmed that the information originated in China.
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Hubristic and expansionist China shouldn’t cry foul when its nationals don’t receive a warm reception in countries it has been bullying for years
Contemporary China has a serious case of split personality. As she flexes her muscles and claims what is “rightfully” hers, China also continues to exhibit a deeply ingrained sense of victimization at the hands of foreign forces and never hesitates to use this trauma whenever she encounters opposition to her ambitions. But at some point China will have to choose: she cannot be both bully and victim at the same time.
The victim’s reflex is understandable, given the emphasis that Chinese school curricula have placed on the “century of humiliation.” But it also signals a national immaturity and an inability to understand what it may feel like for those who find themselves on the receiving end of China’s newfound assertiveness.
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Groups with a track record of violence are threatening President Tsai and her entourage with actions that could pose a major health hazard, including the use of pesticide
The personal safety of President Tsai Ing-wen could be at risk as groups protesting her pension reform program — among them retired police and military personnel and — threaten violence and appear to have infiltrated her security detail.
Twice in recent weeks, protesters knew ahead of time the exact route that President Tsai and her entourage were to take when heading to a public event, raising the possibility of an inside job.
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The latest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan is no game changer, but some of the items approved for transfer suggest greater willingness on Washington’s part to provide counterforce weapons to its Asian ally
The Donald J. Trump administration last week released its first arms package for Taiwan, ending months of speculation that longstanding military assistance to the democratic island-nation may have been overshadowed by Washington’s attempt to secure Beijing’s assistance on the North Korea issue.
Although we can’t be certain whether rapprochement with Beijing — an ephemeral affair, it now seems — or institutional drag due to the absence of appointments to key positions in U.S. government was responsible for the delays in announcing an arms package to Taiwan, last week’s notification sends a welcome signal of continuity to Taipei at a time of mounting pressure from China and diplomatic isolation for Taiwan.
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Most people already knew that ‘one country, two systems’ was a sham, at best a temporary smokescreen meant to facilitate the recuperation of Hong Kong. Now the illusion has been lifted
The most shocking thing about Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang’s remarks on Friday, to the effect that the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong of 1984 is no longer relevant, isn’t so much Beijing’s dismissing of a binding UN treaty but rather the outrage from around the world by individuals who should have known that China never committed to abiding by the treaty to begin with.
“Now that Hong Kong has returned to the motherland for 20 years, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as a historical document, no longer has any realistic meaning,” Lu told a press conference on Friday.
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Despite the challenges and diplomatic reversals, Taiwan is in many ways more connected to the international community today than it was during the ‘diplomatic truce’ with China, and its existence as a sovereign state remains secure
Given the highly publicized loss of two of Taiwan’s official diplomatic allies in December last year and June this year, and the possibility that a few more countries could jump ship in the coming months, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Beijing’s renewed pressure on the international community following Tsai Ing-wen’s election has sparked an irreversible domino-effect of abandonment of the democratic nation-state. But as official allies switch recognition, Taiwan is actively but quietly strengthening unofficial ties with a number of key states.
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A ChinaFile Conversation between Richard Bernstein, Margaret Lewis and J. Michael Cole
There are plenty of things the United States could do, and ought to do, to prevent further isolation of Taiwan. Although Washington has no right to tell other sovereign states how to act on what they believe to be in their national (often economic) interest—such as, in Panama’s case, establishing diplomatic relations with China—it could certainly do more to counterbalance Beijing’s efforts to narrow democratic Taiwan’s international space.
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Absent a working Taiwan strategy, Beijing has ramped up the pressure to isolate Taipei internationally
Panama on Tuesday severed diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and established official ties with the People’s Republic of China, in a move that is as much part of Beijing’s efforts to isolate the democratic island-nation as a logical extension of its global economic policy.
Not long after President Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez made the announcement, Panamanian foreign minister Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, on a visit to Beijing, signed a communiqué establishing Panama’s diplomatic ties with China.
“The Government of the Republic of Panama recognizes that only one China exists in the world, the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government that represents all China, and Taiwan forms an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” the statement said.
My article, published today in The National Interest, continues here.
After more than a billion dollars in infrastructure investment, port acquisitions and the promise of riches, Panama has decided to sever ties with Taiwan and to embrace the PRC
Panama last night announced it was establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the latest in countries that have decided to sever ties with Taiwan and recognize the PRC.
President Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez made the announcement on national networks at 8:00p.m. Panama time.
According to La Estrella de Panama, in recent years China has become one of the three largest users of the Panama Canal. In May 2016 Landbridge Group (China) purchased Margarita Island Port, Panama’s largest port. As part of the US$900 million deal to control Panama’s Margarita Island Port, Chinese interests have vowed heavy investments to upgrade port facilities and build a deepwater port capable of docking larger ships. Landbridge is also the firm that acquired the Port of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.
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Beijing has repeatedly accused its critics of having a ‘Cold War mentality.’ But is being a Cold Warrior really something to be ashamed of? Not if we’re fighting for the cause of freedom against expansionist authoritarianism
It has been a constant refrain among Chinese officials and party-controlled media over the years to accuse whomever opposes China’s expansionist and militaristic ambitions of having a “Cold War mentality.” Rather than shed light on the actual motivations of Beijing’s critics, however, the sobriquet serves little more than as a blanket term to silence and discredit.
Underlying the accusations is the notion, unrelentingly encouraged by Beijing despite ample evidence to the contrary, that China’s “rise” and emergence as a regional superpower is benevolent, natural, and inevitable. Following that logic, which according to Beijing should not be questioned, any criticism or policy that does not yield to this narrative is invariably proof of containment — the U.S. policy against its Cold War opponent, the Soviet Union — and therefore a Western-led (racist) conspiracy to keep China in a state of subjugation.
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It is nearly impossible to find foreign-language books about Taiwan in Taiwanese bookstores. This needs to be fixed, perhaps with incentives from the government
It’s a complaint that anyone who pays attention to Taiwan has heard time and again over the years: We Taiwanese are isolated, repressed by China, and unfairly ignored by the international community. Although there is absolutely nothing false in that statement, Taiwan’s response to this predicament (the public and the government) has often been far too passive — and this starts here at home.
From the outset, it is important to establish the fact that isolation is the offspring of ignorance, of the audience not knowing of that which is being isolated in the first place. Through a sustained and globe-spanning propaganda campaign, China has been hard at work broadcasting a narrative that, little by little, has succeeded in casting Taiwan into the shadows. By dint of an unrelenting assault on the very symbols of Taiwanese statehood (flags, diplomatic presence, participation at multilateral events, presence at academic settings and in the media, and so on), China has sought to isolate Taiwan by rendering it nonexistent in the global imagination.
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Complaints by Taiwanese crew to the new directive appear to have forced the airline company to reverse part of its order
A directive to all Taiwanese cabin crew on Emirates has caused a backlash among employees after it requested they refrain from wearing the Republic of China (ROC) pin on their service waistcoat and replace it with that of China.
The order, issued on Tuesday by the Uniform Standards And Development Manager at Emirates, states that the order followed instructions by the Chinese government and had immediate effect.
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An analysis of President Tsai's foreign and domestic policies during her first year in office
One year has elapsed since Tsai Ing-wen was inaugurated on 20 May. This article assesses her administration’s performance in three specific foreign policy areas - cross-Strait relations, relations with the US, and relations with the broader international community - and briefly touches on her domestic policy and its possible impact on foreign relations.
This article, published today in the Lowy Interpreter, continues here.
After months of waiting, Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices rules that it is against the constitution to bar same-sex individuals from getting married
In a landmark case that has attracted worldwide attraction, 14 judges from Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices on Wednesday ruled that it is unconstitutional for the country to deny same-sex individuals the right to get married,
As it currently stands, the Civil Code stipulates that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. Gay advocates argue that this stipulation violates constitutional guarantees of equal rights.
Wednesday’s decision comes after several years of campaigning by LGBT activists in Taiwan, whose efforts gained momentum in the past year following the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who campaigned on a platform of marriage equality.
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U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have both defensive and political value. While President Trump’s current infatuation with China makes it unlikely that Washington will allow a major arms transfer in the short term, Taipei should already be preparing for the day when the American president realizes that Beijing isn’t the ally he was hoping for
With U.S. President Donald J. Trump currently fixated on North Korea and convinced that China’s help in the matter is indispensable, the prospects of an early arms sale to Taiwan — always an irritant in relations between Washington and Beijing — have gotten dim.
Following months of campaigning on a stridently anti-China agenda, Trump, now that he is in the Oval Office, has not only softened his stance but appears to have been charmed by President Xi Jinping, as have several officials in his administration who have lucrative relationships with China. Many fear that the Trump administration has now embarked on a strategy to appease the Chinese. For example, soon after Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart at Mar-a-Lago last month, the U.S. Navy was denied permission to continue freedom of navigation patrols in the disputed South China Sea, a move seen by many observers as a yet another of many concessions to China.
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Phobia is at the heart of the campaign against the legalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Science and education can cast a light in the dark
Today, May 17, marks the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). Celebrated in more than 130 countries around the world, IDAHOT is a reminder that while much progress has been made in protecting the rights of members of the LGBTQI community, much work still needs to be done as revisionist forces join hands globally to overturn some of the accomplishments that have been made in recent years.
Twenty seven years ago, on May 17, 1990, the WHO finally declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder, a decision, based on scientific evidence, that helped dispel some of the myths surrounding homosexuality and that no doubt made it possible for some countries in subsequent years to legalize same-sex unions and adoption of children by homosexual couples.
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