Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A handout photograph taken on Thursday and released by the Japan Coast Guard shows a coast guard vessel, right, spraying water at a Taiwanese boat, bottom left, after the latter ventured near the disputed Diaoyutais, in the East China Sea.
Photo: AFP

A new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) raises a potentially difficult question for Taipei about its current relationship with Beijing.

“One issue for US policy concerns trends across the Taiwan Strait since 2008,” says the report, made public on Monday.

The report asks whether Taiwan’s moves to grow closer to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have “created a greater willingness” in Taipei to cooperate with Beijing on issues “in which it sees their interests as aligned.”

Law Professor Yuan Hong-bing escaped from the People’s Republic of China where he taught at Peking University. An advocate of democracy, Yuan found himself under arrest and his literary works banned in the years following the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Yuan was able to obtain release from jail and eventually travelled to Australia where he sought political asylum. The refugee scholar now makes his home in Taiwan where he is a law professor, political writer and poet. He is the president of the Intellectual Freedom Association of China and the chief editor of the“Sacred Fire of Liberty” website.