Chinese president Xi Jinping met with former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou today. This was the first time that Xi and Ma have met since 2015, when Ma was still president. The two met in Singapore in 2015, while today’s meeting took place in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People...
An incident involving the following of Taiwanese Vice President-elect Hsiao Bikhim’s motorcade by a vehicle driven by a Chinese military attache in Prague last week proves revealing. The Chinese military attache was following Hsiao in a vehicle, as a means of harassment, and was stopped by Czech police due to his following Hsiao’s motorcade...
Maritime contention between Taiwan and China continues, following the rescue of two Taiwanese fishers by the Chinese Coast Guard after the two became adrift during a fishing trip. This occurred due to the engine failure of their vessel...
KMT deputy chair Andrew Hsia once again traveled to China last week, one of the many visits that Hsia has undertaken to China in the past two years. Hsia met with Song Tao, the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office , although before the trip occurred, the KMT claimed that Hsia had no plans to meet with any Chinese officials...
A drowning incident involving two individuals on a Chinese speedboat in Kinmen territorial waters could prove a case that ramps up tensions between Taiwan and China in the coming days, if the Chinese government leverages on the incident for nationalist outrage...
A text message alert sounded this afternoon in Taiwan shortly after 3 PM, alerting that a rocket had been fired over Taiwan. What ensued, however, was significant confusion between the English and Chinese. The Chinese stated that a “satellite” had been fired over Taiwan by China. By contrast, the English stated that a “missile” had been fired over Taiwan...
For decades, Taiwan has lived under Beijing’s constant military threat of “reunification.” However, Taiwan is often portrayed by Chinese propagandists as a “troublemaker” capable of destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region or making China “upset about everything we [Taiwan] do, about our existence,” as Taiwan’s ex-ambassador to the United States Hsiao Bi-khim noted. Taiwan’s independence, be it a political appeal or an objective reality, is provocative to the CCP. The CCP’s mouthpieces have effectively convinced numerous international observers to discourage Taiwan’s quest for independence and characterized Taiwan’s autonomy as an affront to the Chinese people....
It has been widely recognized that Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019 was the turning point of the 2020 General Election in Taiwan. In the last general election, Beijing’s hardline crackdown on the protests in Hong Kong gave rise to the Taiwanese’s mistrust of China and finally brought a big win to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which was expected to lose both their majority over the Legislative Yuan and their presidency. But after three years of National Security Law (NSL) enactment in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong issue in this general election seems no longer as focal as it was. How should we make sense of this huge contrast in attention? Has “Hong Kong Influence” faded out totally...