Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwanese Karma or China's Discarding Those It No Longer Needs?

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Call it fate, payback or chance, the past Year of the Tiger was not kind to the family of Lien Chan. Though the year officially ended in 2011, by December 2010 the tiger's damage had been done. Was it a belated Taiwanese karma, an example of what goes around, comes around? The Lien family was never known to be fond of the island. This is not to say that they have not profited from Taiwan; in true carpetbagger fashion, they profited immensely, but their hearts always dwelt on the other land across the Taiwan Strait. Thus at years end, Lien Chan was exposed as a patsy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and his son unfortunately took a bullet in the cheek at a Taiwanese political rally.

F16s a test of US support: academic

Taipei Times

A high level conference on Chinese defense and security issues was told on Thursday that if the US fails to sell advanced F16C/D fighter aircraft to Taiwan it will send a signal to Beijing that Washington is no longer fully committed to defending Taiwan.

“If we allow the F16 decision to just lapse, to never happen — and there will never be a good time to do it — we are at risk of appearing to downgrade the Taiwan Relations Act and to upgrade the Chinese interpretation of the Third Communique,” former US National Security Council (NSC) member Michael Green said.

WikiLeaks cable from Beijing reveals U.S. discussion about Taiwan defense

Michael Richardson

Taiwan observers have been watching the daily WikiLeaks releases of U.S. diplomatic cables for documents in a large cache of messages from the American Institute in Taiwan, the defacto embassy of the United States. The United States has never recognized the sovereignty of the Republic of China in-exile over Taiwan, thus no embassy.

The United States is the “principal occupying Power” of Taiwan under the San Francisco Peace Treaty that officially ended World War II with Japan. At the end of the war the United States installed the embattled Republic of China as the occupation government to control the former Japanese territory. Six decades of “strategic ambiguity” have left the island under control by the Chinese Nationalist government, barred from the United Nations, and under threat of invasion from the People’s Republic of China.

First WikiLeaks cable from AIT in Taipei is about weapons export controls

Michael Richardson

WikiLeaks has released the first of its 3,456 diplomatic cables from the American Institute in Taiwan, the defacto U.S. embassy. The unclassified cable from Taipei to Washington went to the State Department and the Department of Energy.

Marked “Sensitive” and “For Official Use Only” the document was created August 13, 2009, and concerns monthly export control reports. The cable discusses a July 21, 2009 meeting with Lin Sheng-Chung, the vice-minister of the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs.

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