Money, persuasion and coercion have all failed
For all the talk about the inevitability of the eventual “reunification” of Taiwan and China and bluster about China’s determination to accomplish the “China dream,” ongoing trends in the Taiwan Strait have made it clear that Beijing’s approach to Taiwan is failing. Short of military conquest, there is very little in the current set of options available to Beijing suggesting that “peaceful unification” is even remotely possible.
For a while, Beijing seemed to have a strategy, and if one did not look too closely it even seemed to be succeeding. Occurring at a time of shifting balance of economic and military power in the Taiwan Strait, the election of Ma Ying-jeou of the “Beijing-friendly” Kuomintang (KMT) in the 2008 elections, followed by the signing of a series of agreements and indications of political rapprochement, led many analysts to conclude that the Taiwan “question” was, at long last, on its way to peaceful resolution. Moreover, the seeming passivity of the Taiwanese public in the early years of the Ma administration seemed to indicate general support for his efforts.
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The electoral costs to the government of proceeding with legalizing same-sex unions in Taiwan are so low it makes no sense to delay the matter any further. And from a moral standpoint, it's the right thing to do
As Taipei prepares to host the largest LGBT Pride parade in Asia on Saturday, the question of legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan is once again making headlines, this time with a reinvigorated drive by legislators to pass the necessary amendments to make this possible.
After months — years, in fact — of foot-dragging, the stars appear to be aligned for Taiwan to become the first country in Asia to embrace marriage equality. A larger-than-ever number of legislators now support legalization, with former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Kuomintang (KMT) becoming the latest to do so. And in the judicial branch, likely appointees have also been sending all the right signals.
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We all know how China treats its own journalists. But what about the CCP's critics outside China? More and more, it's going after them, too
A total of 38 civil society organizations signed a petition earlier this month urging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whose father established relations between Canada and the People’s Republic of China in 1970 — to prioritize protections for freedom of expression as Ottawa moves to deepen its relationship with the authoritarian country.
“We, the undersigned organizations and supporters, call on the Canadian government to put human rights, especially free expression and press freedom, at the heart of the ‘renewed’ Canada-China relationship,” the petition says, referring to the rapid pace of developments between the two governments following the somewhat cooler relationship under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
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Beijing imposes a fiction about Taiwan and often gets its way in global institutions. But in the end, nomenclature will never change the facts on the ground
“In an initial version of the Global Competitiveness Report 2016, Taiwan, China, was incorrectly listed as Chinese Taipei. The change in nomenclature happened as a technical matter — guided by designations used by other international organizations — and in no way signifies a lack of support by the World Economic Forum of the People’s Republic of China’s ‘One China policy.’”
Thus a press release by the WEF on Sept. 29, one day after the release of the report. Due to a “technical matter,” the WEF used the reviled misnomer “Chinese Taipei” adopted by many international institutions to refer to Taiwan or the Republic of China.
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Don’t hold your breath for a breakthrough in President Tsai’s cross-Strait policy on National Day
As Oct. 10 approaches, a growing chorus of voices has argued that Taiwan's National Day will be some sort of “deadline” for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to deliver something palatable to Beijing.
The notion that Double Ten marks a point in cross-Strait relations, beyond which President Tsai’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus and “one China” would prompt further punitive measures by China, has been around for a while. Chinese participants at various conferences and other settings have mentioned it, followed, often quietly in small circles, by a number of Western academics with “insider” knowledge.
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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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How to shore up U.S. interests without sparking war
Like the rest of the world, Taiwan’s twenty-three million people will look on with expectation—and perhaps some trepidation—on November 8 when Americans elect a new president. Whether Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton or Republican Donald J. Trump prevails in the race will, to some extent, determine how Taiwan’s principal security guarantor will deal with its democratic East Asian ally and the authoritarian giant that claims sovereignty over it.
Notwithstanding the fundamental differences that have been highlighted during the long and bitter presidential campaign, it is unlikely that a President Clinton or Trump would be able to implement a drastic shift in the United States’ Asia policy. As with every incoming administration, the nature of the U.S. government system and the sprawling civil service militate against sudden shifts in direction and ensure continuity, regardless of the promises made by a presidential candidate.
My article, published today in The National Interest, continues here.
Two scheduled concerts in Australia honoring Chairman Mao have sparked calls for boycotts. Let them sing and dance and spin all they want in his honor. Our job isn’t to silence them, as this would make us no better than the CCP
Two concerts at the Melbourne and Sydney town halls honoring Mao Zedong (毛澤東) have sparked controversy among China watchers who argue that the event, scheduled for early next month, trivializes the deaths of tens of millions of people during Mao’s reign.
The concerts, which have been widely promoted in the increasingly pro-Beijing Chinese-language media in Australia, will be held in Sydney on Sept. 6 and Melbourne on Sept. 9.
Continues here, with response by Australian critics and some interesting information about one of the Chinese organizers...
For years the DPP blamed the KMT for stalled efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Now in control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, the DPP has no valid argument for further delays
Following Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) victory in the Jan. 16 general elections, many human rights observers in Taiwan and abroad cherished the possibility that Taiwan could become the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. To distinguish itself from the more conservative Kuomintang (KMT) in the lead-up to the elections, Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) made this subject a component of its platform, and a large contingent of party members were instructed to take part in last year’s LGBT Pride Parade in Taipei.
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In the current environment of uncertainty in Hong Kong, controls over who comes in and who goes out will be used more frequently as an instrument by which to deny individuals contact with Hong Kong’s society
Beijing never fully intended the “one country, two systems” formula to be a permanent fixture in its relationship with Hong Kong, and as tensions rise between the central government and the former British colony, control over who is allowed to enter the territory has become a hot issue.
Although Beijing never had a completely hands-off approach to immigration controls in Hong Kong, which had a certain degree of freedom to decide who could come in or not, its meddling in such decisions deepened markedly following Occupy Central and the Umbrella Movement. Since then, several individuals have been denied entry into the territory.
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As the Tsai administration mulls updating Taiwan’s antiquated laws on land expropriation, one demolished building serves as a powerful symbol
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) on Monday said that a pharmacy and residence in Miaoli County’s Dapu Township, demolished to great controversy in 2013, could eventually be rebuilt if the law permits.
Such a move would be welcomed, not only because it would be the just thing to do, but also because of the symbolic value of the act. Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) did very well in the November 2014 local elections and January 2016 general elections in large part due to a widespread loss of confidence in the Kuomintang’s (KMT) ability to find a proper equilibrium between development and respect of society’s most vulnerable groups.
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