Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Opportunities in ties with Slovenia

Marcin Jerzewski 葉皓勤

Amid the ongoing expansion of ties between Taiwan and nations in central and eastern Europe, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has emerged as another regional leader advocating for a greater role for Taiwan in the international system.

With Slovenian parliamentary elections in about a month, Taiwan is hardly the only country where Jansa sought to leave a clear footprint.

On Tuesday last week, he joined his Czech and Polish counterparts in Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Ukraine’s warnings for Taiwan

Miles Yu

The world is focused on Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. And outside of Europe, no country has paid closer attention than Taiwan, a fellow frontline democracy also threatened by a nearby revisionist authoritarian power in Beijing. The lessons of the war in Ukraine are relevant to the entire free world. But it is especially crucial that the Taiwanese people learn from them so that the Taiwanese people can secure their own freedom from tyranny.

The first lesson is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, cannot be trusted. Like the Kremlin, the CCP views international treaties and obligations as mere parchment barriers to its own ambitions. The Ukrainian government, and many nations around the world, made the mistake of accepting Russia’s word in the Budapest Memorandum. What followed is Ukraine’s present catastrophe.

KMT losing ground, losing touch

Taipei Times Editorial

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) confrontation with Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) on Wednesday backfired, with people posting thousands of comments on her Facebook page showing support for the head of the Central Epidemic Command Center — as the KMT once again demonstrated that it is out of touch with the nation.

“I’m with you, minister A-chung (阿中),” many posts read, referring to a common nickname for Chen, while others criticized Cheng, after their heated exchange at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.

China exploiting Ukraine invasion

Lionel Te-Chen Chiou 丘德真

Russia is sleepwalking into becoming a client state for China as the invasion of Ukraine prolongs. As Russia faces increasing international sanctions, China is playing an increasingly larger role in providing the financing that Russia needs to fund its war.

China is exploiting the circumstances by buying cheap oil and gas from Russia while seeking ways to covertly fund Russia’s war on Ukraine to exhaust the US and its allies, and more importantly to pave the way to invade Taiwan.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is going to become a proxy war for China, in which Russia is the client state and China is the principal actor. Such proxy alignment is being formed based on various factors.

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