Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Women’s league declared KMT affiliate

Taipei Times

Director of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign Chilly Chen, second right, and other campaign members protest outside the National Women’s League offices in Taipei yesterday, calling on the Ministry of the Interior not to let the league get away with keeping any of its alleged ill-gotten assets.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

The government yesterday named the National Women’s League a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated organization following its failure to agree to a deal with the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, and froze its assets, which are worth more than NT$38.5 billion (US$1.32 billion), with further action to be taken to determine and confiscate the assets.

Chinese equipment not to be trusted

Taipei Times Editorial

Six years ago, on Jan. 29, 2012, Reuters reported on the completion of the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The building was paid for by the Chinese, who even provided the furniture and IT experts to set up the center’s telecommunications equipment.

While critics suspected the reasons for China’s involvement in the continent’s economic development, African leaders welcomed it. Then-Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi made comparisons between China’s rise and the “beginning of the African renaissance,” which he at least partly attributed to Chinese investment in infrastructure, energy and telecom technology in Africa.

ICAO threatens Strait’s ‘status quo’

Peter Chen 陳正義

Taiwan and China in January 2015 consulted over the M503 flight route, which runs northeast to southwest about 8 nautical miles (14.8km) west of the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

At the time, China said that overland civil aviation routes from Shanghai to Guangzhou had become so congested that it needed to open a new air artery over the Strait.

Taiwan countered that air routes over the Strait were too congested for such a move, so the two sides compromised on a southbound-only opening and agreed that China would not seek additional northbound routes without prior consultation.

Beijing’s incremental moves must be countered

Chen Chia-lin 陳嘉霖

The Chinese government on Jan. 4 announced that is was activating northbound flights along route M503, which runs the length of the Taiwan Strait near the median line and had previously only carried southbound traffic. The unilateral decision was intended to put pressure on Taiwan and test its reaction.

The Chinese government has done similar things in relation to Japan, South Korea, India and the South China Sea. In addition to responding to the M503 affair from the military, defense and national security angles, Taiwan also needs to analyze it with regard to other, seemingly unconnected, aspects of China’s Taiwan policies to get an overall outline of China’s strategic plans.

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