Tu Ching Liang’s videos of warbling passengers have been viewed millions of times
Tu Ching Liang adjusts his yellow novelty hat, as disco lights bounce off the medical mask across his face, and speeds up his taxi.
“No one is as lucky as me, walking out the door every day rushing to go to work and not make any money,” he says, laughing.
Continue reading...Group’s trial on the mainland lasted just one day and was held with few public witnesses
Ten people who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan have been sentenced in a Chinese court to up to three years in jail, while two minors will be returned home without charge.
On Wednesday the Yantian people’s court ordered the group to serve varying sentences of between seven months and three years in jail. Of the two people charged with organising the illegal border crossing, one was sentenced to three years and fined RMB20,000 (£2,260), and the other to two years and fined RMB15,000.
Continue reading...Prosecution of 10 Hong Kongers detained in mainland China after allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan also began on Monday
Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old former lawyer and citizen journalist who was arrested in May while reporting from Wuhan, has been sentenced to four years in jail.
Zhang was arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – an accusation commonly used against dissidents, activists and journalists – with her video and blog reports from the Wuhan lockdown. Last month she was charged with disseminating false information.
Continue reading...Government says deal allowing Beijing officials to interrogate Chinese nationals was standard ‘technical arrangement’
The Swiss government has strongly rejected accusations that a deal allowing Chinese officials to enter Switzerland and interrogate Chinese nationals put dissidents at risk.
Switzerland entered into a so-called re-admission agreement with China back in 2015. The deal expired on Monday.
Continue reading...Joseph Wu says Beijing is seeking to expand its ‘authoritarian order’ and calls for ‘like-minded’ nations to act together to protect Taiwan
The international community must join together in resisting China’s expansionism and preventing an invasion of Taiwan by sharing intelligence, rethinking Chinese business ties and boosting Taipei’s presence on the world stage, Taiwan’s foreign minister has said.
In an interview with the Guardian, Joseph Wu said China’s activities in the South China and East China seas, its border skirmishes with India, and its crackdown on Hong Kong were evidence of it seeking to “expand its authoritarian order”, and that Taiwan was its next target.
Continue reading...After fleeing Hong Kong for Taiwan, Lam Wing-kee speaks of the danger the island faces and the ordeal of his detention in China
Lam Wing-kee leans forward in his chair, answering quickly and sharply to issue a warning to the people of his new home, Taiwan. “Be ready now,” he says.
“We should be more alert as citizens, we should get ready,” says the 64-year-old Hongkonger. “If they can take Hong Kong back, the next place, I feel, is Taiwan.”
Continue reading...Amid Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, publisher says joining clubs to discuss free speech and democracy has again become an act of resistance
In the early 1950s in Taiwan, 19-year-old Tsai Kun-lin was arrested and jailed after joining a book club. The young man spent more than a decade on Green Island, building the prison that held him as a political enemy of the authoritarian rulers who would hold Taiwan under martial law until 1987.
Decades later, a 90-year-old Tsai is living in Taiwan’s thriving democracy, but says a book club has once again become an act of resistance.
Continue reading...Legislators from Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party threw pig guts and exchanged punches with other lawmakers in parliament on Friday as they tried to stop the premier, Su Tseng-chang, from taking questions, in a bitter dispute over easing US pork imports.
President Tsai Ing-wen announced in August that the government would, from 1 January, allow imports of US pork containing ractopamine, an additive that enhances leanness but is banned in the EU and China, as well as US beef more than 30 months old
Continue reading...Opposition party’s ‘disgusting’ offal protest prompts scuffle in Taipei legislative yuan
Parliamentarians in Taiwan have thrown pig guts at each other before coming to blows over plans to allow US meat imports.
Members of the opposition Chinese nationalist party (KMT) brought the offal to the legislative yuan on Friday in the latest of daily protests during parliamentary sittings.
Continue reading...Move is latest chapter in deteriorating relationship with Beijing and improvement under Joe Biden is unlikely
Donald Trump has banned US investment in a further 89 Chinese companies, and reportedly sent a navy admiral to Taiwan, as he seeks to secure a tough-on-China foreign policy legacy.
Multiple media outlets have reported plans by the Trump administration for a series of confrontations with China before Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, and the moves were largely expected. Foreign policy and political analysts believe Trump wants to leave a legacy of being tough on China, while simultaneously conducting a “scorched earth” policy on his way out of the White House.
Continue reading...Countries emphasise potential for cooperation and future partnerships, which Beijing opposes
Taiwan and the United States have held their first high-level meetings under a new economic dialogue, inking a five-year agreement and pledging future cooperation on health, tech, and security.
The talks, held amid a contentious US presidential transition period and high regional tensions with China, did not advance Taiwan’s hopes for a trade deal with US, despite the two countries growing closer under Donald Trump and his pushback on Beijing.
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While Democrats and Republicans squabble in Washington, injustice and violence reigns from Palestine to Mozambique
Believe it or not, the world did not stop turning on its axis because of the US election and ensuing, self-indulgent disputes in the land of the free-for-all. In the age of Donald Trump, narcissism spreads like the plague.
But the longer the wrangling in Washington continues, the greater the collateral damage to America’s global reputation – and to less fortunate states and peoples who rely on the US and the western allies to fly the flag for democracy and freedom.
Continue reading...Authorities thank public for helping to reach milestone, as cases surge in many countries
Taiwan has reached 200 days without any domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19, underlining its success in keeping the virus under control as cases surge in other parts of the world.
The country’s Center for Disease Control last reported a domestic case on 12 April. CDC officials thanked the public for playing a role in reaching the milestone, while urging people to continue to wear masks and wash their hands often.
Continue reading...Lockheed Martin, Boeing Defense, Space & Security and Raytheon named along with US officials who played a role in weapons sales
China will sanction several major defence companies in retaliation for multibillion dollar US arms sales to Taiwan, the foreign ministry has announced.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing Defense, Space & Security and Raytheon were named as targets of the sanctions, as well as “the US individuals and entities who played an egregious role”, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing on Monday, but did not provide further details.
Continue reading...Activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand have formed a novel international alliance to defy authoritarian rule
The language, the demands and the backdrop were different, but the protests across central Bangkok last week would have looked familiar to anyone who followed the mass demonstrations that roiled Hong Kong for a year from June 2019.
Crowds of young protesters, dressed in black and wearing hard hats, poured through the streets to locations announced at the last minute on social media. As the police closed in and the protesters prepared for confrontation, hand gestures and human chains ensured supplies including protective masks and water reached the front lines.
Continue reading...Alleged incident, which comes amid soaring tensions between Beijing and Taipei occurred at a reception in Suva to mark Taiwan’s national day
A fight between Chinese diplomats and a Taiwanese delegate in Fiji left the Taiwanese official in hospital with a head injury, and has again highlighted tensions between Beijing and Taipei in their struggle for influence across the Pacific.
The incident took place at a Taipei Trade Office reception at Suva’s Grand Pacific Hotel on 8 October, to mark Taiwan’s national day. Two officials from the Chinese embassy in Suva allegedly arrived uninvited and tried to photograph and film those in attendance, including at least two ministers from Fiji’s government, diplomats from other countries, international and local NGOs, and members of Fiji’s ethnic Chinese community, sources at the event told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Lee Meng-chu is accused of filming Chinese troops gathering at the border with Hong Kong during protests in 2019
A Taiwanese man detained in China and accused of endangering national security appeared on Chinese television on Sunday evening, “confessing” to illegally filming military exercises in a city bordering Hong Kong during protests there last year.
Human rights organisations accuse China of regularly forcing detainees to deliver public confessions broadcast on television, in a country where the opaque judicial system remains subject to the ruling Communist party.
Continue reading...Tsai Ing-wen says she hopes ‘this is the beginning of genuine change’ after Xi Jinping’s UN speech saying Beijing would never seek hegemony
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, says she has hopes for less tensions with China and in the region if Beijing will listen to Taipei’s concerns, alter its approach and restart dialogue with the self-ruled island democracy.
Speaking at Taiwan’s national day celebrations on Saturday, Tsai took note of recent remarks by Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in a video message to the UN general assembly that China would never seek hegemony, expansion or to establish a sphere of influence.
Continue reading...An invasion may not be imminent but experts say armed forces could have capacity to mount one by the end of the decade
Soon after China imposed the new national security law that effectively ended Hong Kong’s limited autonomy, a hawkish legal academic in Beijing spelt out a warning to Taiwan.
The law was not just about ending a year of protests in Hong Kong, Tian Feilong said in an interview with DW News, it was also sending a message to Taipei – and to Washington, which has recently approved new arms sales and high-level visits by US officials to self-rule Taiwan.
Continue reading...Taipei speaks of ‘real possibility’ of war as US undersecretary for economic affairs pays visit that Beijing regards as provocative
Taiwan’s foreign minister has called for the international community to help defend his country against an intensifying military threat from China, fearing “a real possibility” of war.
The comments from the minister, Joseph Wu, come before the expected arrival on Thursday in Taiwan of the US undersecretary for economic affairs, Keith Krach, with a delegation for a two-day visit.
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