Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Five detained over China spy network

Taipei Times

A diabolo instructor, Lu Chi-hsien (魯紀賢), and four retired military personnel were yesterday detained after a court hearing on suspicion of forming a spy network for China.

The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, along with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) and New Taipei City police, on Wednesday conducted 25 searches, including six at military units, questioned seven suspects and interviewed 11 witnesses.

The five are suspected of “contacting, enticing and recruiting” military personnel from April last year to obtain military intelligence in contravention of the National Security Act (國家安全法), Taipei Deputy Head Prosecutor Tsai Wei-yi (蔡偉逸) said.

Democracies facing greatest test: Tsai

Taipei Times

Taiwan would confront the destabilizing forces working against democracies while strengthening cooperation with democratic nations, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in Taipei yesterday at an event marking the 20th anniversary of the state-financed Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

Democratic nations and the rules-based international community are confronting their “greatest challenge” since the Cold War, Tsai said.

Authoritarian regimes are mounting an effort to “corrode our democratic institutions and undermine human rights” in a bid to spread societal distrust and weaken public confidence in democracy, she said.

EU, Japan lead global agenda

Andrew Hammond

The EU and Japan have long been close post-war allies.

However, there are growing signs their relationship is entering a “golden age,” with geopolitical and economic ramifications well beyond the bilateral partnership.

Grand terminology such as “golden” is, of course, subjective, and can be prone to reversal. For instance, the UK and China declared a “golden era” during the administration of then British prime minister David Cameron after 2010, but that has since been hastily jettisoned given the range of bilateral challenges.

Beijing’s ‘Ryukyu card’ and Taiwan

Tzou Jiing-wen 鄒景雯

For more than a month, the Chinese Communist Party’s media and commentators have been trying to propagandize the “undecided status of Okinawa islands.” Such propaganda has reached its peak since Okinawa Prefecture Governor Denny Tamaki’s high-profile visit to China early this month. Beijing is indirectly warning Tokyo.

China is once again playing the “Ryukyu card” for various reasons, among which its fear of Japan and the US deploying land-based medium-range guided missiles in the Okinawa islands is perhaps its biggest worry.

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