April 2019

The Cross-Straits Oversight Bill Reemerges as an Issue

It may be ironic that five years after the Sunflower Movement’s monthlong legislature of the Legislative Yuan in 2014, one of the demands dating back to the movement has floated up again as a public issue. Namely, one of the key demands of the movement was that a cross-strait oversight bill be passed in order to strengthen civic oversight over the passage of future cross-strait bills...

Why Does China Hope to Accomplish Through Deploying Fighter Planes in the Taiwan Straits?

Two Chinese J-11 fighter aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Straits at 11 AM yesterday morning, provoking strong reactions from within Taiwan and prompting the Taiwanese air force to mobilize five fighter planes in response. The incident was a break from precedent, seeing as while Chinese regularly fields planes in the Taiwan Straits, they do not usually cross the median line of the Taiwan Straits...

Ko Is All but Certain to Run for President, but Ambiguity Plagues His Policy Proposals.

On March 20th, Taipei Ko Wen-je spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC to outline his experiences as Taipei mayor, emphasizing his status as an anti-establishment politician. Despite not having announced his intention to campaign for president in 2020 just yet, the content of Ko’s speech suggests that he indeed plans on running for president...