Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

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.

Retired colonel gets 20-year term for spying

Taipei Times

The Kaohsiung Branch of the High Court yesterday found retired air force colonel Liu Sheng-shu (劉聖恕) guilty of operating an espionage network for China, handing him a 20-year prison term.

The verdict is subject to appeal.

Five of Liu’s six codefendants — a group consisting mainly of active-duty military officers ranked major to colonel — also received guilty verdicts with sentences ranging from six months to 20 years and six months.

Cooperating to limit China

Taipei Times Editorial

Amid the global turbulence of the Israel-Palestine conflict and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US on Friday released a report showing that China increased warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone by 79 percent from last year, indicating that Beijing might create unrest in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US Department of Defense’s annual report on China’s military prowess warned that Chinese warplane incursions into Taiwan’s defense zone last year rose to 1,737 from 972 in 2021.

Beijing pressures businesspeople

Huang Wei-ping 黃惟冰

In response to requests from businesspeople, the Straits Exchange Foundation arranged an investment event in Kinmen County. No one would have expected that at least 18 senior representatives of a Taiwanese business association in China had been contacted by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), which convinced them not to participate in the event.

The incident harkens back to a Chinese Communist Party propaganda article published in 2015 that tried to convince Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), Hong Kong’s richest man, to keep his assets in China. Li, who had most of his assets in Hong Kong, started to off-load his major property investments in China, a move that triggered a series of discussions in Beijing. The Liaowang Institute, a think tank of Xinhua news agency, published an article accusing Li of abandoning his benefactor upon achieving his goal, especially at a sensitive moment when China’s economy was at risk.

More Articles...