Garrett Dee

Taiwanese Government Eyes Driverless Vehicles As Part Of Its Transportation Plan

The concept of driverless vehicles is an idea that has been floated around for decades, first in science fiction, though in Taipei, automated vehicles may soon become a reality. Despite the controversy surrounding the recent Forward Thinking Infrastructure Plan, automated vehicles have received quite a bit of attention, with plans being laid to have them on the road as early as this year...

Controversy Over Religious Practices Exposes Potential Future Faultlines

Controversy on the subject of the government’s supposed restrictions on religious practices and their impact on the environment has sparked protests in Taiwan with the start of Ghost Month, leading over ten thousand Taoist and Buddhist devotees to march in Taipei in opposition to what they saw as unreasonable government interference in their religious expression...

First Trump-Xi Meeting Goes Off Without a Hitch, Uncertainty Still Looms Large For Taiwan

Though world may have awaited with baited breath the first meeting between recently-inaugurated US president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago which occurred last week, reports coming out of the two-day event indicate an almost entirely conventional summit with no major surprises. Nevertheless, uncertainty still looms large for Taiwan...

Japan Poised To Seek Closer Relations With The US And Russia Following Abe-Trump Meeting

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited the United States last week to meet with US president Donald Trump to discuss the future of US-Japan relations, often considered a key relationship in the Asia Pacific, but one that had faced significant strain in the wake of Trump’s election. The substance of the weekend-long discussion between the two heads of state warrants a closer examination given the shifting balance of power in the Asia Pacific...

Wealth, Power, And Pride All At Stake For The US And China In The South China Sea

A series of comments made nine months months ago by former head of the far-right Breibart news organization and now chief strategist of the Trump administration Steven Bannon in regards to the South China Sea have recently come to light, giving a glimpse into the Trump administration’s worldview concerning Chinese expansion in the Asia Pacific...

Challenges For Tsai In The Wake Of The US Withdrawal From TPP Negotiations

With the signing of Trump’s executive order regarding the United States’s withdrawal from Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, US president Donald Trump brought an end to US involvement in the controversial trade deal that would have opened markets between the US and many countries in the Asia Pacific,with the notable exception of China. What now for Taiwan, which sought admission to the trade deal?...

Tsai’s Stopover In Houston And The Possibility Of A Tsai-Trump Meeting

Tsai Ing-Wen's stopover transit in Houston on her way to visit Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador and her subsequent meeting with Texas senator and former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz may have drawn hysterics from alarmists, but it is really no more than business as usual. But this non-departure from standard procedure in and of itself is worthy of reflection, and we might take look at how this fits into the current context of Taiwan’s international situation...
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Garrett Dee

Garrett is a writer living in New York City. His topics of interest are film & book reviews, international politics and technology.