Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Lai names Hsiao as running mate

Taipei Times

Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, yesterday named former representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as his running mate in January’s election.

The announcement was not a surprise, as Hsiao had long been speculated to be Lai’s top choice for the job.

Calling herself a “cat warrior” — a play on the assertive “wolf warrior diplomacy” style of Chinese officials — Hsiao, 52, yesterday told a news conference that she was ready to “fully commit” herself to the presidential campaign.

US deterrence policy and Taiwan

Daniel McIntyre 馬恕聃

Over the past few weeks there have been a number of articles in the international media from US policy analysts which have argued that Washington should integrate more assurances into its deterrence policy toward Beijing — namely, to convince Chinese leaders that the US’ goal is not the permanent separation of Taiwan from China. One case in point is Oriana Skylar Mastro in the New York Times on Oct. 16, who said that to bolster deterrence, the US should reiterate to Beijing that it does not “oppose the island’s peaceful unification with China.”

Assurance is the concept of the moment. Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund, writing shortly after Mastro in the same publication, said that the US should “provide credible assurances to Beijing that as long as China refrains from using force against Taiwan, Washington will not support the island’s independence nor return to its past defense treaty with Taipei.”

BeiDou a threat to national security

Taipei Times Editorial

A Taiwanese vessel used in a drug smuggling operation was equipped with a Chinese navigation system to evade law enforcement, attorney Huang Hsin-ying (黃馨瑩), a Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislative candidate, said on Tuesday. The use of China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System threatened national security, Central News Agency (CNA) cited Huang as saying.

BeiDou, which is used by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is a two-way system. The more Taiwanese vessels that use it, the more tracking data China has access to — data that could bolster the positioning capabilities of the PLA in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

My regret in voting for Ko Wen-je

Lin Jin-jia 林進嘉

Middle-class people do not want Taiwan to remain stuck in a conflict between the “blue” and “green” political camps, or for every election to become a battle of ideologies. They want Taiwan to become a normal democratic country where, no matter which party is in power, there will always be a loyal opposition to strictly supervise the governing party, and where alternation of ruling parties is the norm.

However, just as the idea of a “blue-white” electoral alliance between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) seemed to be on the verge of collapse, on Friday last week former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT suddenly announced via one of his advisers that he supported the suggestion made by TPP Chairman and presidential nominee Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) that a “national opinion poll” should be the basis for deciding which party’s nominee in a possible “blue-white” joint ticket should be the presidential candidate and which should stand for vice president.

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