Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

US skepticism and national identity

Taipei Times Editorial

Small states with powerful, larger neighbors in international relations face a challenging reality.

Counting on bilateral trade for their domestic prosperity, they must grow economic ties while ensuring they do not develop a trade dependency that would undermine their independence.

To safeguard their security, they must decide whether to develop closer diplomatic ties with their larger neighbor, offering assurances and trust-building mechanisms, or to seek an external alliance with other nations in a coalition, protecting themselves and keeping threatening neighbors at bay.

Taiwan must learn from 228, Lai says

Taipei Times

President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said he would work to safeguard the nation’s security and democracy to ensure freedom and economic prosperity, and that the tragic events of the 228 Incident “never happen in Taiwan again.”

The Incident refers to the indiscriminate killing of a person in a crowd on Feb. 27, 1947, and the gunning down by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of protesters at a resulting demonstration the next day. It was followed by a brutal crackdown. Estimates of the number of eventual deaths vary from 10,000 to more than 30,000.

The Incident was closely followed by the White Terror era in Taiwan.

Lessons from the war in Ukraine

Bryan D. Hopkins

When I was in Ukraine filming for an upcoming documentary, I was surprised at how frequently my mind naturally tended to map Ukraine’s war experience onto Taiwan, where I have lived for the past 10 years.

There are obvious parallels of an imperial nuclear superpower asserting itself over a smaller non-nuclear state, but there are also small mundane things that would impact everyday life. When I saw Ukrainian elderly people filling jugs of water at a church in sub-zero temperatures and hauling it back to their homes which might not have electricity, I imagined the difficulty of a Taiwanese senior carrying that water up numerous flights of stairs in sweltering heat. It is a heartbreaking thought.

Domestic sub undergoes harbor tests

Taipei Times

The nation’s first domestically built submarine prototype, the Hai Kun (海鯤號), yesterday was transferred to a dry dock for final harbor acceptance tests.

The prototype has been undergoing harbor acceptance tests at the factory of shipbuilder CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) in Kaohsiung since October last year after an unveiling ceremony in late September.

On Monday evening, the prototype was towed from the CSBC factory to nearby Jong Shyn floating dock No. 8 and then transferred to a nearby dry dock, where the final tests were being conducted.

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