Category Archives: Taiwan

Antony Blinken says US is not seeking ‘cold war’ with China

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US secretary of state vigorously defends existing global order but admits Washington sees Beijing a ‘long-term challenge’

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for a vigorous defence of the existing global order, but stressed that Joe Biden’s administration did not seek a “cold war” with China.

“President Biden believes this decade will be decisive,” Blinken said in a China policy speech on Thursday. “The actions we take at home and with countries worldwide will determine whether our shared vision of the future will be realised.”

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Fears Biden’s Taiwan comments may raise tensions despite rowback

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President said US would ‘get involved ’ if China attacked Taiwan, which some saw as policy shift

Comments by Joe Biden suggesting major US policy changes in regard to defending Taiwan before Washington quickly rowed back have sparked concern that the confusion could escalate tensions.

On Monday, in answer to a reporter’s question at a meeting of the informal Quad alliance, the US president said the US would “get involved militarily” to defend Taiwan if it came under attack from China. The answer was interpreted by some as an indication of a major policy shift. However, within minutes the state department began walking back the comments, and Biden himself clarified on Tuesday that there was no change to US policy.

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US would defend Taiwan if attacked by China, says Joe Biden

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President says US’s responsibility to protect island is ‘even stronger’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Joe Biden has said the US would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan if it came under attack from China, in an unusually forceful presidential statement in support of self-governing that drew a defiant response from Beijing.

Speaking in Tokyo on the second day of his visit to Japan, and against the backdrop of growing concern over Chinese military activity in the region, Biden said the US’s responsibility to protect the self-ruled island – which China considers a renegade province – was “even stronger” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Beijing’s rhetoric in spotlight as Taiwan condemns California shooting

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Deadly incident renews debate over cross-strait tensions and Beijing’s reunification rhetoric

Taiwan’s president has condemned the deadly shooting at a Taiwanese church in California by a man reportedly driven by hatred of the self-governing island, where debate about cross-strait tensions has intensified along with Beijing’s reunification rhetoric.

Tsai Ing-wen’s office issued a statement saying she condemned “any form of violence” and extended her condolences to those killed and injured, and that she had asked the island’s chief representative in the US to fly to California to provide assistance.

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Beijing accuses US of ‘political manipulation’ in latest Taiwan row

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State department fact sheet amended to remove line saying US ‘does not support Taiwan independence’

Beijing has accused Washington of “political manipulation” and attempting to change the status quo after the US state department quietly amended its website to remove a line stating it did not support Taiwanese independence.

In a delicate geopolitical balancing act, the US has long acknowledged, but not supported, China’s claim to Taiwan under its version of the “one China principle”. However, experts say that policy has been eroded as Beijing has become more assertive.

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Taiwan won’t go into lockdown like Shanghai despite Covid surge, premier says

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Taiwan opts to live with the virus in contrast to Shanghai, which has been criticised for measures taken as part of zero-Covid approach

Taiwan will not go into a Shanghai-like lockdown to control a rise in Covid-19 cases as the vast majority of those infected have no symptoms or show only minor symptoms, the premier, Su Tseng-chang, has said.

Taiwan has been dealing with a spike in local cases since the start of the year, but the numbers overall remain small – 18,436 since 1 January for a population of some 23 million – and just four people have died.

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Taiwan news channel accidentally airs false report of Chinese invasion

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CTS apologises for panic caused by broadcast of mocked-up captions it says it created for security drills

A Taiwanese news channel has broadcast by mistake a fictional news alert that said Chinese armed forces had launched an invasion, firing missiles at cities and ports surrounding the capital, Taipei.

Several news captions declaring a violent attack by China’s People’s Liberation Army had been mocked up for forthcoming security drills, but were broadcast accidentally to Taiwanese viewers at 7am on Wednesday.

Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin and Xiaoqian Zhu

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Taiwan may extend conscription as Ukraine invasion stokes China fears

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Russian attack reignites debate about Taiwan’s readiness for potential Chinese invasion

Taiwan is considering extending compulsory military service for young citizens to a year, its defence minister has said, in an apparent reverse of the island’s years-long transition from conscription towards a fully voluntary military.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reignited debates in Taiwan over the readiness of its defence force for a potential invasion by China, which claims the island as a province it must at some point “retake”. Taiwan’s government has been increasing defence spending and its weapons procurement from the US, but at the same time has been trying to change its defence force to an entirely voluntary organisation and address long-running problems with training and resources.

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‘A blatant lie’: China and Taiwan fight for credit over rescue of sailors lost at sea for 29 days

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Both governments are claiming responsibility for rescue of nine Papua New Guinean nationals last month

Tensions between China and Taiwan have found an unlikely battleground – a fight over who rescued nine Papua New Guinean sailors who were lost at sea for nearly a month.

The dispute came after the rescue of the Papua New Guinean nationals in Solomon Island waters after 29 days lost at sea, late in February.

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Hong Kong protests documentary breaks Taiwan box office record in opening weeks

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Revolution of Our Times looks at the 2019 demonstrations, which some Taiwanese saw as a warning sign about their own future

A film on the pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019 has broken a box office record in Taiwan for an overseas Chinese-language documentary within the first fortnight of its release.

Revolution of Our Times, directed by Hong Kong film-maker Kiwi Chow and which premiered at the Cannes film festival last year, has grossed around $17m NTD (US$600,000) as of Wednesday, the film’s distributor said.

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European countries dominate half of Asian shark fin trade, report reveals

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Despite nearly a third of shark species nearing extinction, Spain supplied 51,000 tonnes of shark fins from 2003-20, says IFAW

European countries are selling so many shark fins to Asia that they dominate nearly half the trade, a study has found.

Shark populations continue to decline, driven by the global shark fin trade. Last year, scientists found a third of sharks and ray species have been overfished to near-extinction, jeopardising the health of entire ocean ecosystems and food security for many countries.

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China rattled by calls for Japan to host US nuclear weapons

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Influential former prime minister Shinzo Abe called for Tokyo to consider hosting US nuclear weapons in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

China has reacted angrily to calls by Japan’s influential former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, for Tokyo to consider hosting US nuclear weapons in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising concern over Chinese aggression towards Taiwan.

Abe, who presided over record defence budgets before resigning in 2020, said Japan should cast off taboos surrounding its possession of nuclear weapons following the outbreak of war in Europe.

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‘Of course I worry’: shock waves from Ukraine reach Taiwan

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With the threat of invasion from China ever present, people’s fears are playing out in eastern Europe

About 5,000 miles away from the violence in Ukraine, shock waves from Russia’s invasion are being felt in Taiwan. Until recently, Taiwan was considered to be one of the world’s most significant potential flashpoints for a multination war. It was heralded – albeit with some exaggeration – as “the most dangerous place on Earth”, under growing threat of invasion by Xi Jinping’s China, which considers the independently governed democracy to be a Chinese province.

This week its people have watched their fears play out in eastern Europe, as Russian forces – ordered by Xi’s ally Vladimir Putin – attacked in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday.

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Fifty years on, ‘Nixon in China’ loses its sparkle in Beijing and Washington

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The trip was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough at the time but now critics in the US question its wisdom

On a brisk winter day in February 1972, the 34-year-old American diplomat, Winston Lord, arrived in Beijing with his boss, Henry Kissinger, and president Richard Nixon. Barely an hour after they checked in to their guest house, a message came: “Chairman Mao wants to see president Nixon.”

The urgency from Mao resonated with the excitement from the American delegation. The establishment of bilateral relations offered great opportunities for both sides in facing a common enemy: the Soviet Union. For more than two decades since the Chinese communists took over the mainland, Beijing and Washington had had no official contact on this scale.

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US approves $100m deal for Taiwan to upgrade Patriot missile system

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Defence sale will help ‘maintain political stability, military balance, economic and progress in the region’, says US

The United States has approved a possible $100m sale of equipment and services to Taiwan to “sustain, maintain, and improve” the Patriot missile defense system used by the self-ruled island claimed by China, the Pentagon said.

A statement from the US defence security cooperation agency on Monday said it had delivered the required certification notifying Congress after state department approval for the sale, which was requested by Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington.

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Biden rattles his sabre at Putin … but it’s Xi he really wants to scare

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Tub-thumping talk of all-out war in Ukraine seems overblown but the White House knows the fledgling Sino-Russian axis is a real threat, in Taiwan and elsewhere

If, as seems increasingly probable, Russia decides not to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, tub-thumping US and British politicians who have spent weeks scaring the public with loose talk of looming Armageddon will have some explaining to do.

The military build-up directed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is real enough. But suspicion grows that the actual as opposed to the hypothetical threat of a large-scale conventional attack is being mis-read, misinterpreted, over-estimated or deliberately exaggerated.

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Taiwan condemns ‘contemptible’ China-Russia partnership on eve of Olympics

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Taipei calls ‘no limits’ agreement announced after Xi-Putin summit an insult to the Olympic spirit

Taiwan has condemned as “contemptible” the timing of China and Russia’s “no limits” partnership at the start of the Winter Olympics, saying the Chinese government was bringing shame to the spirit of the Games.

China and Russia, at a meeting of their leaders hours before the Winter Olympics officially opened, backed each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the west.

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China’s ambassador to US warns of possible military conflict over Taiwan

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Unusually explicit reference to prospect of war comes as tensions over island’s future continue to rise

China’s ambassador to the US has said the two countries could face a “military conflict” over the future of Taiwan, in an unusually explicit reference to the prospect of war.

“The Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States,” Qin Gang told the US public broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR), on Friday. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in the military conflict.”

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Coronavirus live: Japan and Poland report record cases; Germany seven-day rate at new high

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Concerns about new Omicron offshoot in England; France to bring in strict restrictions for unvaccinated people

Germany’s seven-day incidence rate has risen to a high of 772.7 infections per 100,000 people, up from 706.3.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 135,461 new infections on Saturday, an increase of 57,439 on the same day a week ago, when 78,022 positive tests were reported.

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Taiwan sees sharp rise in Covid cases, posing risk to Lunar New Year

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Outbreak at factory challenges zero Covid strategy that has kept the island largely free of the disease

Taiwan has reported a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases with a cluster among workers at a factory threatening authorities’ tenuous control of an Omicron outbreak on the eve of Lunar New Year.

On Saturday, Taiwan’s centre for disease control reported 82 domestic cases, including 63 found at the Taoyuan factory in a first round of testing on Friday. Most of those sick are migrant workers, health and welfare minister Chen Shih-chung said.

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