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Xi and Biden Meet in Virtual Summit Over Taiwan, Other Issues

US president Joe Biden met with Chinese president Xi Jinping today in a virtual meeting. This was one of the most high-profile meetings between the leaders of the world’s two superpowers since Biden took office, with Xi having not left China in around two years. As a result, Xi was not in attendance at the COP26 summit on global carbon emissions, something that was criticized by Biden. The meeting took place on what was Tuesday morning in China and Monday evening in the US...

Three-Day Visit by US Delegation Conducted Quietly Last Week

A three-day diplomatic visit by a delegation of six Republican members of Congress to Taiwan took place last week. The delegation arrived on November 9th and stayed until November 11th. This consisted of four Senators and two members of the House of Representatives, these being Senators John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Mike Lee, and Tommy Tuberville, as well as Representatives Tony Gonzales and Jake Ellzey...

Net-Zero Carbon Emissions Statement by Tsai May Be Primarily Aimed at International Diplomacy

President Tsai Ing-wen stated that Taiwan was committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 in comments made in the same timeframe of the 26th U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, more commonly referred to as COP26, in Glasgow earlier this week. The statement by Tsai proves interesting, in that global climate change is rarely the political framework for discussing environmental issues in Taiwan...

The NPP and DPP Split on the Referendum Vote

With the national referendum scheduled for next month, notably, the DPP is the only political party represented in the legislature that will stake out a “no” vote on three of the four referendum questions. This includes the NPP, a fellow pan-Green party, voting in approval of three questions that the DPP intends to call on its supporters to vote down. However, this is probably ultimately driven by the NPP’s need to distinguish itself from the DPP more than anything else...

Scandal Over National Tsing Hua University Office Illustrates United Front Efforts on Taiwanese Campuses

Reports earlier this week indicated that efforts to recruit Taiwanese IT staff were being conducted at National Tsing Hua University by the Chinese government. This took place through a branch office that had been rented on the university campus by an alumni association, in cooperation with China’s Tsinghua University located in Beijing, and the government of Xiamen. The university has denied having any relations with the office, with the Tsai administration stating that the university may have violated the law...

New Bloom Happy Hour #1: The Loneliest Number

Welcome to another episode of Radio New Bloom! Today we’re excited to debut a new program, that we’re calling New Bloom Happy Hour where New Bloom members get together to discuss a topic. Today we’ll be discussing Jay Caspian Kang’s new book, The Loneliest Americans, with a focus on the New York Times’ excerpt of the book and the first chapter of the book. Participants in the discussion are SueAnn Shiah, Daniel Yo-Ling, Wen Liu, and Eathan Lai...