Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

S mulling new arms sales to Taiwan

Taipei Times

US President Barack Obama’s administration is weighing fresh arms sales to Taipei as part of a sweeping effort to deter any Chinese attack on Taiwan, administration officials told the US Congress on Tuesday.

Such supplies would be on top of plans sent to Congress on Sept. 21 to sell Taiwan US$5.85 billion in new hardware and defense services, including upgrades for its 145 F-16A/B aircraft, bought in 1992.

Beijing deems arms sales to Taiwan a grave interference in its domestic affairs and the biggest obstacle to improved relations between the world’s two largest economies.

China’s big mouth may have helped Taiwan out

Edward Chen 陳一新

The US has announced plans to upgrade Taiwan’s F-16A/B aircraft, but not to sell it F-16C/Ds. Although expected, many people in Taiwan found it difficult to hide their disappointment. However, it is precisely because of Beijing’s fierce opposition to the F-16C/D sale that Taiwan stands to receive many of the systems it has been eyeing for years.

Beijing made a show of anger about the upgrade, but one can imagine that inwardly it is satisfied with the outcome. Indeed, in the US-China-Taiwan scenario, Beijing has apparently walked away with the “second-best” result — preventing the US from selling Taipei the F-16C/Ds.

Tsai lauds bilateral relations in Tokyo

Taipei Times

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday highlighted the US-Japan security pact as the cornerstone of stability in East Asia and the DPP’s wish to strengthen Taiwan’s relations with Japan in a speech in Tokyo.

Japan “continues to occupy a special place in the emotions of the Taiwanese people,” the DPP’s presidential candidate told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.

Tsai, who is in the middle of a three-day visit to Japan, emphasized four elements in Taiwan’s relationship with Japan: security, democracy, economy, and trade and travel, as well as other areas of interaction.

New era of Chinese spying dawns

Taipei Times Editorial

Lamentable though it may be, news last week that Central Police University associate professor Wu Chang-yu (吳彰裕) had been taken in on suspicion of passing information about dissidents to China was not shocking. However, this incident did bring into sharp contrast the dawn of a new era of Chinese “espionage” in Taiwan.

There is nothing new to espionage operations by China targeting the Taiwanese military, security apparatus, political parties and high-tech sector. Over the years, a number of Taiwanese have been caught spying for Beijing. The arrest and sentencing this year of General Lo Hsien-che (羅賢哲) for providing military secrets to China is but the latest and most prominent case in a long series of spy operations.

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