The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato
Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Taiwan's "Midterms" and Why They Matter

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The elections are an opportunity for the PRC to hone its skills and to unleash the full panoply of political warfare tactics against its g...
Monday, November 12, 2018

China Threatens the Democratic World Order—and Canada Can’t be a Weak Link

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Despite our allies’ warnings, Ottawa isn’t taking the threat of authoritarian China seriously. That could be disastrous  For many year...

That’s What ‘Fake News’ Looks Like and What it Does to Democracy

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A fabricated incident during the Kaohsiung mayoral candidates’ debate at the weekend demonstrates how disinformation can be used to underm...
Tuesday, November 06, 2018

‘Deep Greens’ are Playing with Fire in their Attempt to Sabotage the Tsai Administration

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For those who favor a free and independent Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen remains their best bet. But they will have to learn to be a little more pa...
Sunday, October 28, 2018

As Taipei Celebrates Diversity, Anti-LGBT Group Warns of ‘Nefarious’ Western Influence

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The conservative Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance has called on Taiwanese to resist machinations by Western countries to undermin...
Thursday, October 25, 2018

The Hard Edge of Sharp Power: Understanding China’s Influence Operations Abroad

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In recent years, China has invested billions of dollars in an effort to boost its visibility and improve its image abroad. However, unbekn...

Xinjiang Will Be China’s Palestine

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By so utterly mishandling Xinjiang, Beijing has opened a new front along its peripheries, one that could result in terrible violence again...
Wednesday, October 24, 2018

The True 'Pivot to Asia' Is Here

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The Indo-Pacific region is on the frontline of the greatest challenge to the international liberal order since the 1930s  After years of...

Chinese Interference in Taiwan’s Elections is Part of a Two-Pronged Attack on Democracy

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For the November elections, vote buying is no longer the purely local problem it once was. It is now directly tied to Beijing’s sustained ...
Thursday, October 04, 2018

The Impact of China's Disinformation Operations Against Taiwan

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Amid escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait, China has intensified its disinformation activities (“fake news”) targeting Taiwan as part ...
Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Taiwan’s ‘Soft Power’ is Severely Underfunded — And China is Partly Responsible

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There is no reason why bright young minds, research centers, web site operators, film producers and others who are committed to a free and...
Friday, August 17, 2018

China’s Dangerous ‘Bottom-Up’ Ultranationalism and the 85℃ Incident: a Warning

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By allowing netizens to define its cross-Strait policy, Beijing risks losing control of the situation and could cause severe harm to an al...
Saturday, August 11, 2018

Conflict in the Taiwan Strait Is No Mere ‘Family Struggle’—It’s Part of Something Much Greater

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Whether we like it or not, Taiwan is in the frontline of an ongoing battle — and it is heating up — to determine the kind of world we and ...
Wednesday, August 08, 2018

WATCH: China's Military Just Released a New Video Showing Off Its Most Powerful Weapons

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The video is brimful with the grandiosity that is now associated with the military under Xi Jinping: a lot of ammunition is fired, and the...
Tuesday, August 07, 2018

‘Peaceful Unification’ Is Dead and Buried

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The Chinese Communist Party uses ‘peaceful’ as a cover, a smokescreen to isolate and sideline whomever opposes its objective of annexing T...
Thursday, August 02, 2018

China’s Bullying of Taiwan Highlights its Helplessness Against the Drift of Taiwanese Society

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Beijing’s hopes for a gradual unification of Taiwan with China have been frustrated, not by Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP, but by Taiwanese soc...
Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Disinformation Targets Legitimacy of Taiwan’s Passport

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A rumor claiming that Taiwanese can no longer use their passport to board international flights and that the E.U. had revised its visa-fre...
Friday, July 27, 2018

Unity Is Key to Countering China’s ‘Sharp Power’

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China is in conflict with a world order and a system of rules and beliefs that it now regards as an impediment to its ambitions. As its in...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018

China’s Great Squeeze Strategy Against Tsai Ing-wen

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Beijing seeks to isolate Taiwan and condition its people and the international community to accept a ‘new normal.’ It also seeks to widen ...
Saturday, July 21, 2018

It's Time to Stop China's Seaward Expansion

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Through our inattention, we have lost control of the South China Sea, which Beijing now occupies and has militarized. It is now time to pu...
Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Threatened Ban on Hong Kong National Party Signals Beijing’s Weakness

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One hell of a contrast: As Beijing renders illegal small political parties in the Hong Kong experiment with autonomy, Taiwan has moved in ...
Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Xi-Lien Meeting: Same Old Platitudes, With Two Possible Gems

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Given how little the two men gave us to run with, all we’re left with is what wasn’t said, or things half-said, which may give us a glimps...
Friday, July 13, 2018

Taiwan in Dead Center of China’s Greater Territorial Ambitions

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Beijing is determined to rewrite the rules in the Asia-Pacific region. No matter who occupies the Presidential Office in Taipei, that will...
Thursday, July 12, 2018

Neutrality for Taiwan: A Dangerous Proposal

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Former vice president Annette Lu and her supporters have floated the idea of a ‘neutral’ Taiwan that is ‘devoted to peace.’ Not only is th...
Saturday, June 30, 2018

Is Taiwan Ready for an Aggressive China?

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Despite the rhetoric, Beijing still has not made Taiwan its No. 1 priority. Taipei cannot afford to wait for the day when it does, and in ...
Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Say What You Want, Opposing Same-Sex Marriage Is Not a Human Right

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Expanding human rights so that visible minorities are treated as equals under the law should be the aspiration of any democratic society. ...
Wednesday, June 20, 2018

JAL, ANA Show How to Respond to Chinese Pressure

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Yes, the two Japanese carriers have given in to Chinese pressure. But they may have found a formula that meets Beijing’s demands without i...
Monday, June 18, 2018

Nice Democracy You’ve Got There. Be a Shame If Something Happened to It

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China's Communist Party is using thuggish proxies to disrupt Taiwan and Hong Kong  Secret societies, criminal organizations, and tri...
Friday, June 01, 2018

Worry Not: The New AIT Compound in Taipei Will Not Derail US-China Relations

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Much speculation has surrounded this month’s opening of the new de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan and the effects it could have on Sino-Amer...
Friday, May 25, 2018

China’s Bullying of Taiwan: External Distraction for an Underperforming CCP?

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Beijing’s harassment of Taiwan is not only failing, it serves as a distraction for a regime in Beijing that has done very little to help t...
Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Ottawa Can’t Shirk Responsibility in China-Taiwan Air Canada Controversy

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The Trudeau government’s cowardly response to Air Canada’s decision to list Taiwan as part of China could damage Canada’s reputation abroa...
Tuesday, May 22, 2018

時間不多了!台灣必須振作起來

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綜觀北京當局近來針對台灣所有的文攻武嚇,雖有人民解放軍提升在鄰近區域的演習頻率,外加限縮台灣國際空間的種種企圖,中國仍然無法說服外界:已經把「統一台灣」列為第一優先要務。不過,情況是會改變的,而等到那天真的到來,台灣最好已經做足面對這項艱難挑戰的準備。但遺憾的是,目前實在看不...
Saturday, May 19, 2018

As Airlines Give In to Chinese Pressure, Taiwan Needs a Strategy to Hit Back

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Citizens or Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration could initiate legal action in Taiwan or in other jurisdictions against airlines that l...
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About Me

J. Michael Cole 寇謐將
Taipei-based Senior Fellow China Policy Institute U Nott, ass. researcher CEFC, chief ed Taiwan Sentinel, project manager Taiwan Democracy Bulletin. M.A. War Studies Royal Military College of Canada, Int'l Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance CIHC, CX-77 (peacekeeping) Lester Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, B.A. English lit. Ex-deputy news editor Taipei Times 2006-2013, Thinking Taiwan (2014-16). Analyst at Canadian Security Intelligence Service (2003-2005). Published in/by IISS, Brookings, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, SCMP, Globe & Mail, Maclean's, National Interest, Lowy Interpreter, The Age, Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Jane’s Intelligence Weekly, Jane’s Navy International, Jane’s International Defence Review, the Ottawa Citizen, China Brief, CounterPunch, FrontLine Security, Strategic Vision, Asia Today International, The News Lens and The Diplomat. I was the 2012 recipient of the award for Outstanding Journalism from the Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation. I have appeared on BBC, CBC, CNN, VOA, RTI and Al-Jazeera. I use a Nikon D7100 camera. Follow me on Twitter @jmichaelcole1
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