Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Biden must have a clear message

Joseph Bosco

As a Chinese Communist Party attack on Taiwan seems more plausible, three current or former high-ranking US Navy officials recently warned of the danger.

Then-US Indo-Pacific commander admiral Phil Davidson last month told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that China is “developing systems, capabilities and a posture that would indicate that they’re interested in aggression.”

Their intention to take Taiwan could “become manifest in the next six years,” Davidson said.

Taiwan’s constitution challenge

Jerome Keating

Taiwan needs a new constitution. It has needed one since the end of World War II, when its citizens should have had the right to self-determination like any other colonials. That is when its current “limbo status” was created and from which it continues.

Yes, Taiwan needs a new constitution, a Taiwan constitution.

Some things can stare one in the face, and yet their reality remains hidden. It remains hidden because the pressing needs of the time and other distractions too often demand resolution. That has been Taiwan’s ongoing problem, but now that the nation has stabilized in its democracy, a new constitution can no longer be put off.

Stabilizing power by dispersing risk

Taipei Times Editorial

A nationwide blackout on Thursday last week — the first major power incident since a blackout on Aug. 15, 2017 — sparked public dissatisfaction as people were trapped in elevators, offices went dark and factories were forced to suspend operations after a malfunction at an ultra-high-voltage substation in Kaohsiung triggered four generators at the Singda Power Plant (興達電廠) to go offline shortly before 3pm.

On that day, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) apologized to the nation for the rolling power outages that ensued, and the following day, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which said that human error was to blame, proposed a plan to compensate affected households and businesses.

Taiwan and the ghosts of history

Ian Buruma

Would the US be prepared to risk a catastrophic war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to protect the Republic of China, better known as Taiwan? US President Joe Biden laid out his vision clearly last month. He sees the rivalry between the PRC and the US as a global conflict between democracy and autocracy, and Taiwan is unquestionably one of Asia’s most successful democracies.

In 1954, then-US president Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons after China shelled a rocky islet near Taiwan’s coast, when the country was still a military dictatorship. Things were different then. The US was treaty-bound to defend Taiwan. This changed after 1972, when US president Richard Nixon agreed that Taiwan was part of “one China,” and US president Jimmy Carter nullified the defense treaty in 1979.

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