Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

No one wins without change

Taipei Times Editorial

Some fireworks can be expected tomorrow inside and outside the national affairs conference on pension reform, but a lasting solution to the problems facing the nation’s 13 pension funds is not. The pension plans are in need of too much repair for that.

However, the potential for crucial change is there.

Trump-China: The first 100 days

Andrew Hammond

US president-elect Donald Trump is to be sworn into office tomorrow after one of the most uncertain US presidential transitions in the post-war period. US foreign and trade policy could be entering a period of change as significant as any since the beginning of the Cold War, when then-US president Harry Truman helped build a consensus around US global international leadership.

Trump wants “a new foreign-policy direction” and his stance on Russia and China in his first 100 days could be key leading indicators of the degree of transformation on the horizon.

Spouting Chinese propaganda

Taipei Times Editorial

It is unfortunate that Taiwan has a neighbor across the Taiwan Strait that wants to annex it, but, even more frustrating, Taiwanese also have to put up with people who echo China’s rhetoric and intended to intimidate Taiwanese into obedience.

On Friday, while attending a book launch by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Culture and Communications Committee director-general Lee Chien-jung’s (李建榮), former Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman Su Chi (蘇起) said that the number of young Taiwanese who identify with Taiwanese independence ideals would “reduce sharply to 20 percent from the perceived 70 or 80 percent” if the US factor were removed and if China were to invade.

Establishing a new ‘modus vivendi’

Edward Chen 陳一新

On Jan. 4, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) issued a summary report on its visits to high-level officials on both sides of the Taiwan Strait at the end of last year. In addition to recommending that the incoming US administration continue to support Taiwan’s democracy and expanded international participation, it recommend that the US support efforts to establish a “new modus vivendi” across the Taiwan Strait to maintain fundamental communication and exchanges.

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