The Trump administration’s shift in a pro-China direction seems likely to hasten the movement of Asia Pacific countries away from America under the Trump administration...
It is strange to observe the means by which many otherwise sharp western observers on Taiwanese politics, particularly Americans, continue to cling to strange delusions regarding Trump’s potential positive influence on Taiwan or at least his lack of any harmful influence on Taiwan. Such views may ultimately be reflexive in nature for many...
The victory of Moon Jae-In as president of South Korea draws strong parallels to Taiwan, with the election of a center-left president put into power after a social movement which galvanized much of society. But we can observe where structural parallels between Taiwan and South Korea end, given that as a center-left political candidate, Moon is skeptical of closer ties between South Korea and the US...
If the Tsai administration is careful about it, Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s meeting of the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, can ultimately serve as an opportunity to raise Taiwan’s international profile and raise awareness of international bullying of Taiwan by China...
With a recent incident in Australia last week in which the Taiwanese delegation to the Kimberley Process conference on blood diamond trafficking was expelled following the demands of the Chinese delegation and affiliated African delegations, however counterintuitively, we can observe an opportunity for Taiwan to make its plight known to the international world. The real question is whether the Tsai administration is willing to take action to make Taiwan’s plight better known to the international world...
China's apparent lack of interest in recovering money stolen by Chinese fraud victims by Taiwanese criminals illustrates that cross-strait relations have apparently taken precedent over settling questions of justice for China. If the Tsai administration is smart, it will leverage on this fact...
Trump's recent handling of South Korea should be concerning for Taiwan. For one, Trump suggested that Korea had once been part of China, which obviously does not bode well for Taiwan given China's claims over it. Likewise, Trump was willing to lie outright regarding the possibility of intervention against North Korean missile tests...
It draws interesting parallels to Taiwan to note that, as the world descended into panic over the possibility of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula over the possibility of North Korean nuclear testing leading to an American reprisals, South Koreans were hardly panicking...
The rejection of Chinese asylum seeker Zhang Xiangzhong’s application for asylum in Taiwan illustrates the Tsai administration’s unwillingness to rock the boat on cross-strait matters at present. This is likely indicative of a highly conservative impulse in the Tsai administration’s current attempts to maintain a stable relationship between Taiwan and China...
As another country in the Asia Pacific which faces the threat of China using its large economy as a political weapon, Taiwan stands to learn greatly from the effects of the Chinese boycott on South Korea due the deployment of the American-manufactured Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile defense system in South Korea. But the lessons Taiwan stands to take away are, in fact, counterintuitive...