Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Power play points to tensions ahead

Andrew Hammond

China warned US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday not to destabilize East Asia after US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in Japan that the Senkaku Islands — also known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — claimed by Taiwan, Japan and China, were covered by a US-Japan military mutual-defence accord.

Mattis accused China of “shredding the trust” of its neighbors and his remarks build on those last month by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Beijing should “not be allowed access” to its new, artificial islands in the South China Sea.

In support of a Taiwan-Japan FTA

Guo Kuo-hsing 郭國興

On Jan. 23, US President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on the US’ withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Although this decision will have an impact on the export-oriented economies of Taiwan and Japan, it is also a great opportunity to start negotiations for a free-trade agreement (FTA) between the two nations, whose economies have both become mired in “L-shaped” long-term stagnation.

Despots, empires: China and the US

William R. Stimson

When I was a teenager in Cuba, a year or so after then-Cuban president Fidel Castro’s revolution, a little boy asked me: “Why are you an imperialist?”

I felt it an unfair accusation. Communism was then taking hold in Cuba and its ideologies had commandeered the minds of the young.

Patriot missiles deployed on east coast

Taiwan Tati Cultural & Educational Foundation

A Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile is being fired in an undated picture.
Screengrab from Lockheed Martin’s Web site

Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile systems were moved to the Hualien and Taitung areas ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday to ensure that Taiwan’s southeastern border is adequately defended in case of an attack, sources at the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.

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