Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

China’s fascination with currency

Barry Eichengreen

At the start of this month, China’s currency, the yuan, was added to the basket of currencies that make up the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, or SDR. Previously, the SDR had been defined as a weighted average of the US dollar, euro, British pound and Japanese yen. Now that the yuan has been added, it can claim to be one of just five truly global currencies.

Should we care? The Chinese certainly do. In Beijing, where I was late last month, joining the rarefied SDR club was all people wanted to talk about. (OK, truth be told, they also wanted to talk about Donald Trump.)

Taiwan, the US and a free press

Jerome Keating

Whether one looks at the practice of democracy in Taiwan or in the US, this year will definitely go down as a historic one, if only because of the presidential elections in each nation.

In Taiwan, this year marked the first time in its history that the public elected a female president, namely Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This happened even though the DPP had been out of power for the previous eight years.

Beijing chasing an unrealistic goal

Taipei Times Editorial

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) National Day address yesterday contained no surprises regarding her China policy, as she maintained the stance she set in her May 20 inaugural address that “the pledges we made remain unchanged, our goodwill is unchanged, but we will not succumb to pressure from China, and we will not revert to the old path of conflict and confrontation.”

Beijing was most probably “disappointed,” as it had described Tsai’s inaugural address as an “incomplete test” because it did not recognize the so-called “1992 consensus.” It was probably hoping that Tsai might “complete the test” by providing an “answer” it deemed satisfactory.

Taiwanese risk deportation to China

Taipei Times

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu, center, presides over a public hearing on cross-strait judicial mutual assistance and China’s judicial and human rights situation at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

The detention of Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) in Thailand raised concerns that Taiwanese who travel abroad could face deportation to China for advocating independence, civil campaigners said yesterday at a Legislative Yuan hearing.

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