Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan’s unresolved status is getting growing attention in the United States

Michael Richardson

A flurry of events around the United States shows that Taiwan’s longstanding “strategic ambiguity” is getting some attention.

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives is holding a full day of hearings this week to explore “Why Taiwan Matters”, a federal judge has set a hearing date over a Kuomintang default in a case involving Republic of China gold bonds, WikiLeaks revealed a close relationship between the ROC government and the American Institute in Taiwan while Taiwanese-American groups in Los Angeles and Boston urged eviction of the ROC from Taiwan.

No help with trade disputes

Taipei Times

Even a man as powerful and influential as Hon Hai Technology Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) cannot conquer all. Gou has led the group in building about 30 overseas manufacturing sites and the group owns the world’s largest contract electronics maker, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, which generated NT$3 trillion (US$104 billion) in revenue last year from making electronics for devices such as the iPhone and Kinect.

Still, Gou’s influence has held no sway in his legal battle against Chinese automaker and electrical component manufacturer BYD Co during five years of patent infringement lawsuits. Hon Hai’s handset manufacturing arm, Foxconn International Holdings, sued BYD for theft of trade secrets in Shenzhen and Hong Kong in 2007.

US lawmaker warns China on Taiwan

Taipei Times

US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, has warned China not to interfere in Taiwan’s presidential election and promised to support Taiwan’s democracy in every way she can.

In a wide ranging speech -delivered in Los Angeles on Saturday, Ros-Lehtinen called on US President Barack Obama to sell F-16C/D aircraft to Taipei and to work to improve relations with Taiwan.

“Taiwan remains a great beacon of democracy in East Asia and an important strategic ally in a key region of the world,” she said.

Taiwan's Past Corruption under the KMT was Big Time Corruption

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Well it seems that if Taiwan's military under Ma Ying-jeou are not running off to China to be buddy-buddy with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), then their past big time corruption under the KMT is coming back to haunt them.

A Paris Court recently ruled in favor of Taiwan that the anti-corruption clause violation had been violated in the sale of six Lafayette frigates by French defense giant Thales (then known as Thomson-CSF)to Taiwan in 1991.

Bribes and kickbacks in this 2.8 billion US dollar deal seem to be running anywhere from US$590 million to US$730 million which makes the less than US$20 million that Chen Shui-bian is appealing seem like pocket change.

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