Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

US re-evaluating Taiwan’s role in South China Sea

Taipei Times

The US might encourage Taiwan to play a larger role in the growing South China Sea dispute, a US official said.

US Department of State spokesman Jeff Rathke on Tuesday offered support for President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) peace initiative, while Washington policymakers are expected to discuss the issue with Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) when she visits the city next week.

Hong Kong is Taiwan’s nightmare

Taipei Times Editorial

Anyone with an understanding of Hong Kong’s politics knows that on paper the highest official of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is the territoriy’s chief executive, but in practice the top authorities are the director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and officials in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Zhongnanhai. It is Beijing that calls the shots.

This is the reason Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) was unmoved throughout last year’s student-led protests: He could not make a decision and Beijing does not allow political reform. The situation in Hong Kong is the future nightmare of Taiwan. Recent events have caused alarm among Taiwanese who feel the nation will follow Hong Kong.

Firm basis for cross-strait relations

Gerrit Van Der Wees

On Thursday last week, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton gave a major policy speech on US-Taiwan relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She spoke highly of the relations between the two nations, saying that the administration of US President Barack Obama had worked to “reconceptualize and reinstitutionalize” the relations and built “a comprehensive, durable and mutually beneficial partnership.”

Taiwan’s struggle to be recognized

Lin Shih-chia 林世嘉

During the Ebola epidemic last year, Taiwan had no way of contributing to the aid effort under way in Africa in any official capacity. After the earthquakes in Nepal last month, the Nepalese government initially refused assistance from the government.

In March, the WHO updated the International Health Regulations list of authorized ports and harbors, with Taiwanese ports still listed as in China. This year also coincided with the end of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and the world’s governments are now negotiating draft sustainable development goals for the post-2015 development agenda, a discussion from which Taiwan has been excluded.

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