Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Last weekend, the Taiwan Rural Front and farmers from all over the country held an overnight protest on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. It was the second such demonstration, the first having taken place exactly one year ago.

The repeat protest is a cause for celebration and anxiety among farmers’ supporters. What is worth celebrating is that farmers are gradually growing stronger as a force in their own right. They have shown that they can sustain a vigorous movement, keep watch on the government and make their voices heard when it breaks its promises. What makes people anxious, on the other hand, is that the central government’s response to farmers’ demands consists mostly of stopgap measures and pledges made in bad faith. The government seems incapable of coming up with any effective and realistic policies.

The Taiwanese navy can no longer hope to compete with China for control of the waters adjoining Taiwan and should instead embark on a program that focuses on “sea denial,” two academics argue in a landmark study of Taiwan’s naval strategy.

Calling for a break with Taiwan’s naval power paradigm, Chinese navy experts James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara of the US Naval War College write that denying the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) use of the waters around Taiwan would be nearly as effective for homeland defense as fighting for outright sea control, as designated in the current strategy.