Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Elections are not a clowning spectacle

Chang Kuo-tsai 張國財

We are now in the countdown to next year’s presidential election, which is to be held on Jan. 13. The candidates are striving to make their voices heard and jockeying for a lead position in opinion polls to avoid being dumped by tactical voters, and that is all fine as long as they stick to legitimate methods rather than anything too ugly.

While Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the candidate nominated by the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has been proposing his political standpoints one by one, the two opposition party nominees — New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — have not been using policy proposals as their main talking points.

US lawmakers question delays in arms to Taiwan

Taipei Times

A US congressional committee on Thursday questioned the US Navy over what it called “alarming delays” in weapons deliveries to Taiwan, asking why production sometimes languished for months or years after purchasing deals were signed.

Time was running out to deter military action by China toward Taiwan, US Representative Mike Gallagher, chair of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and US Representative Young Kim, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Indo Pacific, said in the letter to US Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.

Smear campaigns and fake accounts

Linus Chiou 邱士哲

In the current digitalized world, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between genuine concerns raised democratically by citizens and politically motivated talking points pushed forth by those with ulterior motives.

There was a time when online users could calmly articulate a political position and others would likewise respond in a thoughtful manner. These days, respectful disagreements and civil online debates are rare. The descent toward a populist online culture is no particular group’s fault. Social media platforms constantly flood their users with information far beyond the limits of a sane person’s attention span. In this ecosystem, sensationalist positions are naturally the ones that get the most spotlight.

What US should do about Taiwan

Minze Chien 簡明子

After a recent visit to Beijing, Stanford University political scientist Oriana Skylar Mastro wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday last week, titled “This is what America is getting wrong about China and Taiwan.”

Unfortunately, her article wrongly advised the US to conclude a new (fourth) communique with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and acquiesce to China’s ambitions to annex Taiwan (under the guise of “peaceful unification”) to avoid a war with China.

A few days later, while speaking at Washington think tanks, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) cited Mastro’s op-ed, and called upon the US to remain neutral on the Taiwan question and stop “weaponizing” Taiwan.

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