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☆ As China’s Pressure on Taiwan Rises, Departing U.S. Envoy Urges Steady Hand
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-17 | by ( Chris Buckley | Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Near the end of three years as the United States’ chief representative in Taiwan, Sandra Oudkirk has some parting advice: Avoid panic about China’s combative language and moves, but don’t grow numb to the risks. Ms. Oudkirk has been Washington’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan over a time when the island democracy has become a crucible of tensions between Washington and Beijing. China claims that Taiwan is its territory and must accept unification, by armed force if leaders in Beijing decide that is necessary. At times, debate among Taiwanese and American politicians, officials and experts has taken on some tension as well, over which mix of tactics — what military purchases, what reassuring or unyielding words to Beijing, what steps with fellow democracies — could best reduce the risks of war. Ms. Oudkirk, who leaves her post in Taipei early next month, suggested that Taiwan and its partners needed to find a steady path, avoiding both hysteria and complacency.

Persons: Sandra Oudkirk, Oudkirk, — Organizations: United States ’ Locations: United States, Taiwan, Washington, Beijing, China, Taipei

☆ Why Lawmakers Are Brawling and People Are Protesting in Taiwan
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Amy Chang Chien | Chris Buckley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The legislation proposed by Mr. Lai’s opponents gained passage only a little over a week after he took office, highlighting the challenges he will face in pursuing his agenda without a legislative majority. In elections in January, the opposition Nationalist Party and Taiwan People’s Party together secured more seats in the 113-seat legislature than Mr. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party. Mr. Lai’s supporters have accused the opposition of overreach and of serving the interests of the Chinese Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as its territory. Nationalist and Taiwan People’s Party legislators have rejected those accusations, and Mr. Lai’s officials have not offered proof of allegations that Beijing orchestrated the legislation. Politicians jostled and fought, and members of Mr. Lai’s party covered the floor and walls of the chamber with protest placards.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai’s, jostled Organizations: Nationalist Party, Taiwan People’s Party, Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party, Chinese Communist Party, Nationalist Locations: Taiwan, Beijing

China launched two days of military drills starting Thursday surrounding Taiwan in what it called a “strong punishment” to its opponents on the self-governing island, after Taiwan’s new president pledged to defend its sovereignty as he took office. The drills were the first substantive response by China to the swearing in of President Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing dislikes, in Taipei on Monday. Mr. Lai’s party asserts Taiwan’s separate status from China, and in a high-profile inaugural speech on Monday, he vowed to keep Taiwan’s democracy safe from Chinese pressure. China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has mainly responded to Mr. Lai’s speech with sharply worded criticisms. China did not say how many planes and ships it was deploying in the exercise, but the last major drill in multiple locations around Taiwan that China has conducted was in April of last year in response to the visit to Taiwan by the former House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

Persons: Lai Ching, Kevin McCarthy Locations: China, Taiwan, Beijing, Taipei, Kinmen, Taiwan Strait

Taiwan’s incoming president, Lai Ching-te, is poised to take office on Monday, facing hard choices about how to secure the island democracy’s future in turbulent times — with wars flaring abroad, rifts in the United States over American global security priorities, and political divisions in Taiwan over how to preserve the brittle peace with China. Mr. Lai has promised to steer Taiwan on a safe course through these hazards, a theme that he is likely to highlight in his inaugural speech on a public plaza in Taipei. He has said that he will keep strengthening ties with Washington and other Western partners while resisting Beijing’s threats and enhancing Taiwan’s defenses. Yet he may also extend a tentative olive branch to Beijing, welcoming renewed talks if China’s leader, Xi Jinping, sets aside his key precondition: that Taiwan accept that it is a part of China. “We’ll see an emphasis on continuity in national security, cross-strait issues and foreign policy,” said Lii Wen, the international director for Mr. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party and an incoming spokesman for the new leader.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, Xi Jinping, “, ”, Lii Wen, Lai’s Organizations: Washington, Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party Locations: United States, Taiwan, China, Taipei, Beijing

☆ Taiwan, on China’s Doorstep, Is Dealing With TikTok Its Own Way
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Meaghan Tobin | Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As it is in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island’s 23 million residents. People post videos of themselves shopping for trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographed dances and debate whether the sticky rice dumplings are better in Taiwan’s north or south. Taiwanese users of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also served the kind of pro-China content that the U.S. Congress cited as a reason it passed a law that could result in a ban of TikTok in America. The video was flagged as fake by a fact-checking organization, and TikTok took it down.

Persons: Influencers, Rob Wittman, stoking, TikTok Organizations: U.S, Republican Locations: United States, Taiwan, China, America, Virginia, Taiwan’s

☆ Beijing Deplores Taiwan’s Next President, but Welcomes an Old One
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Chris Buckley | Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As tensions fester between China and Taiwan, one elder politician from the island democracy is getting an effusive welcome on the mainland: Ma Ying-jeou, a former president. Mr. Ma’s 11-day trip across China, which was set to begin on Monday, comes at a fraught time. Beijing and Taipei have been in dispute over two Chinese fishermen who died while trying to flee a Taiwanese coast guard vessel in February, and China has sent its own coast guard ships close to a Taiwanese-controlled island near where the men died. Taiwanese officials expect China to intensify its military intimidation once the island’s next president, Lai Ching-te, takes office on May 20. His Democratic Progressive Party rejects Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, and Chinese officials particularly dislike Mr. Lai, often citing his 2017 description of himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence.”On the other hand, China’s warm treatment of Mr. Ma, 73, Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016, seems a way to emphasize that Beijing will keep an open door for politicians who favor closer ties and accept its conditions for talks.

Persons: Ma Ying, Ma’s, Lai Ching, Lai, ”, Ma Organizations: Democratic Progressive Party Locations: China, Taiwan, Beijing, Taipei, Taiwanese

But ship collision barriers are standard around the support piers of bridges over major waterways like the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, for example, has massive barriers of concrete and rocks around the bases of the piers that support it. It was not immediately clear how old the barriers are around the piers that supported the bridge in Baltimore. The bridge there was being fitted with devices designed to protect the piers in case of any ship crash. The bridge has massive barriers of concrete and rocks around the bases of the piers that support it and protect it from ship crashes.

Persons: Spencer Platt, Basil M, ”, “, Mr, Karatzas, Amy Chang Chien Organizations: Officials, China Central Television, Getty, Karatzas Marine Advisors Locations: Guangzhou, China, Baltimore, Baltimore’s, New York City, New York

☆ China’s Dispute With Taiwan Is Playing Out Near This Frontline Island
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Chris Buckley | Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A small island controlled by Taiwan a few miles off China’s coast lived for decades in constant readiness for war. At one point in 1958, troops there hunkered in bunkers as Communist forces rained hundreds of thousands of shells on them. These days, the island, Kinmen, has become a hub of Taiwan’s commerce with China and its abandoned, weatherworn fortifications are tourist sites. Eight ferries a day take Taiwanese businesspeople and visitors from Kinmen to mainland China. But the sea around Kinmen has again turned tense after two Chinese men onboard a speedboat died in the area last month while trying to flee a Taiwanese Coast Guard vessel.

Organizations: Coast Guard Locations: Taiwan, Kinmen, China

Snow and freezing rain in China were disrupting travel on Monday and had already caused hundreds of rail and flight cancellations, as millions of people traveled across the country before lunar new year holiday begins this weekend. For many years, heavy travel within and into China ahead of the holiday, known as Spring Festival in Chinese, produced the world’s largest annual migration. During the coronavirus pandemic, fear of lockdowns, quarantines and other rules deterred many from traveling. Last year, the authorities abruptly lifted those rules weeks before lunar new year after facing widespread protests, but many would-be travelers stayed put because they were anxious about spreading the virus. This year was supposed to mark a return to normal levels of holiday travel.

Locations: China

An Australian writer and businessman who has been detained in China since 2019 has been declared guilty of espionage and was given a death sentence with two years’ probation on Monday, in a blow to warming relations between Australia and China. If Mr. Yang does not commit any crimes in those probationary two years, the sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment, Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, said in a statement. She described the verdict as “harrowing.”The long detention of Mr. Yang — who is also known by his legal name, Yang Jun — has been one of the sources of tensions between Australia and China. Now the severe sentence may again weigh on relations, which had been improving after the election of a new, center-left Labor government in Australia in 2022. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, visited Beijing late last year and has pressed for Mr. Yang’s release.

Persons: Yang Hengjun, Yang, Penny Wong, Yang —, Yang Jun —, Anthony Albanese Organizations: China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Labor Locations: Australian, China, Australia, Beijing

☆ Shih Ming-teh, Defiant Activist for a Democratic Taiwan, Dies at 83
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Chris Buckley | Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Shih Ming-teh, a lifelong campaigner for democracy in Taiwan who spent over two decades in prison for his cause and later started a protest movement against a president from his former party, died on Jan. 15, his 83rd birthday, in Taipei, the island’s capital. The cause was complications of an operation to remove a liver tumor, said his wife, Chia-chiun Chen Shih. Mr. Shih helped lead a pro-democracy protest in 1979 that was brutally broken up by the police and that is now viewed as a turning point in Taiwan’s journey from authoritarianism to democracy. “I was imprisoned for 25 years, and I faced the possibility of the death penalty twice, but each time I came out, I instantly plunged back into the whole effort to overthrow the Chiang family dictatorship,” Mr. Shih said in an interview with The New York Times in 2022. “I’m someone who never had a youth.”

Persons: Shih Ming, Chia, Chen Shih, Shih, Chiang Kai, shek, Chiang Ching, Chiang, ” Mr, “, ” Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Taiwan, Taipei, China

The collection of American memorabilia, vast and well-lit in a busy area of City Hall in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, reflected decades of eager courtship. Maps highlighted sister cities in Ohio and Arizona. There was a celebration of baseball, an American flag laid out on a table. And in the middle of it all, a card sent to the United States that seemed to reveal the thinking of Tainan, a metropolis of 1.8 million, and nearly all of Taiwan. “Solidarity conquers all.”The message was aspirational — a graphic illustration of profound insecurity.

Organizations: City Hall, Solidarity Locations: City, Tainan, Ohio, Arizona, American, United States, Taiwan, China

In 2014, when Lai Ching-te was a rising political star in Taiwan, he visited China and was quizzed in public about the most incendiary issue for leaders in Beijing: his party’s stance on the island’s independence. His polite but firm response, people who know him say, was characteristic of the man who was on Saturday elected president and is now set to lead Taiwan for the next four years. Mr. Lai was addressing professors at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai, an audience whose members, like many mainland Chinese, almost certainly believed that the island of Taiwan belongs to China. Mr. Lai said that while his Democratic Progressive Party had historically argued for Taiwan’s independence — a position that China opposes — the party also believed that any change in the island’s status had to be decided by all its people. The party’s position “had been arrived at through a consensus in Taiwanese society,” Mr. Lai said.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, “, ” Mr Organizations: Saturday, Fudan University, Democratic Progressive Party Locations: Taiwan, China, Beijing, Shanghai

The Taiwanese presidential candidate Lai Ching-te has for years been reviled by China’s Communist Party as a dangerous foe who, by its account, could drag the two sides into a war by pressing for full independence for his island democracy. Right up to Saturday, when millions of Taiwanese voted for their next president, an official Beijing news outlet warned that Mr. Lai could take Taiwan “on a path of no return.”Yet, despite China’s months of menacing warnings of a “war or peace” choice for Taiwan’s voters, Mr. Lai was victorious. Mr. Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, secured 40 percent of the votes in the election, giving his Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., a third term in a row in the presidential office. No party has achieved more than two successive terms since Taiwan began holding direct, democratic elections for its president in 1996. gathering outside its headquarters in Taipei, thousands of supporters, many waving pink and green flags, cheered as Mr. Lai’s lead grew during the counting of the votes, which was displayed on a large screen on an outdoor stage.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, Lai’s Organizations: China’s Communist Party, Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan Locations: Beijing, Taiwan, Taipei

In the months leading up to a pivotal presidential election for Taiwan, candidates have focused on who can best handle the island democracy’s volatile relationship with China, with its worries about the risks of war. But at a recent forum in Taipei, younger voters instead peppered two of the candidates with questions about everyday issues like rent, telecom scams and the voting age. It was a telling distillation of the race, the outcome of which will have far-reaching implications for Taiwan. The island is a potential flashpoint between the United States and China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and has signaled that it could escalate military threats if the Democratic Progressive Party wins. A considerable number expressed disillusionment with Taiwan’s two dominant parties, the governing Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Nationalist Party.

Organizations: Democratic Progressive Party, Nationalist Party Locations: Taiwan, China, Taipei, United States

“China and the United States’ relations will forever be linked to the name ‘Kissinger,’” Mr. Xi said to Mr. Kissinger as the two men sat side by side in cream-colored armchairs. It was the same building where half a century earlier Mr. Kissinger had met Zhou Enlai, who was then China’s premier: Villa No. When Mr. Xi was on the cusp of power in 2012, he met Mr. Kissinger twice — once in Beijing and then in Washington. In a sign of the high regard in which he was held, Mr. Xi respectfully cited Mr. Kissinger’s views in speeches. “It is understandable that he cared about the interests of the United States,” Professor Lu said.

Persons: ”, Henry A . Kissinger, Mr, Kissinger, Nixon’s, Xie Feng, Biden, Xi Jinping, “, ‘ Kissinger, ’, Xi, Zhou Enlai, Li Shangfu, John F, Kirby, Kissinger “, Wu Xinbo, —, President Trump, Wu, Trump, Kissinger’s, Charles T, Munger, Lu Yeh, Lu Organizations: Global Times, Communist Party, Beijing, United, Mr, U.S . National Security Council, Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, National Chengchi University Locations: China, United States, Washington, Communist, Beijing, U.S, ” China, “ China, Diaoyutai, Shanghai, Philippines, Australia, Weibo, Taiwan, Taipei, “

Suspicious videos that began circulating in Taiwan this month seemed to show the country’s leader advertising cryptocurrency investments. Her mouth appeared blurry and her voice unfamiliar, leading Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to deem the video to be almost certainly a deepfake — an artificially generated spoof — and potentially one created by Chinese agents. For years, China has pummeled the Taiwanese information ecosystem with inaccurate narratives and conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine its democracy and divide its people in an effort to assert control over its neighbor. Now, as fears over Beijing’s growing aggression mount, a new wave of disinformation is heading across the strait separating Taiwan from the mainland before the pivotal election in January. Perhaps as much as any other place, however, the tiny island is ready for the disinformation onslaught.

Persons: Tsai Ing Organizations: Criminal Locations: Taiwan, China

☆ In Warning to Taiwan, China Announces Military Patrols
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Amy Chang Chien | More About Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

China’s military said it would stage “joint combat readiness” patrols around Taiwan on Saturday, sending a warning gesture to the island democracy soon after a leading candidate in Taiwan’s presidential election finished an overseas trip that Beijing had denounced. Vice President Lai Ching-te, the candidate, had flown to Paraguay — one of 13 states that keeps diplomatic relations with Taipei, and not Beijing — making stops in the United States on his way there and back. The Chinese government is trying to curtail the international activities of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. It especially objects to Taiwanese leaders’ visits to the United States, the island’s most important political and military supporter. He is the presidential candidate of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which favors asserting Taiwan’s distinctive identity and sovereignty — a position that Beijing condemns as threatening its claim to the island.

Persons: Lai Ching, ’, Lai’s, Taiwan’s, Lai, Shi Yi Organizations: Democratic Progressive Party, Eastern Theater, People’s Liberation Army Locations: Taiwan, Beijing, Paraguay, Taipei, United States

Vice President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan rose to prominence as a pugnacious opponent of Beijing’s claims over the island. But now, as a leading candidate in Taiwan’s presidential race, he is likely to present a more muted persona when he visits the United States starting Saturday. Expect restraint, not rousing speeches, Taiwanese officials and scholars say. Nonetheless, his stops in New York and San Francisco will be closely watched — in Taiwan, in Beijing and in Washington — for clues to how he might handle crucial relations with the United States and China as president, a top issue in Taiwan’s intense presidential race. And his visit, however low-key, is also likely to prompt an escalation of Chinese military flights and naval maneuvers near Taiwan, bringing into focus the risks of real conflict over its future.

Persons: Lai Ching, Beijing’s, Washington —, there’s, ”, Shu Hsiao, huang, ” Mr, Lai, William Organizations: United States, People’s Liberation Army, Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, Democratic Progressive Party Locations: Taiwan, New York, San Francisco, Beijing, Washington, United States, China, Taipei

Chinese naval ships and air force planes have been edging closer to Taiwan’s territorial seas and skies, probing the island’s vigilance and trying to wear down its military planes and ships. China’s increasing presence there signals its intent to dominate an expanse of sea that could be vital for the island’s defenses, including for securing potential aid from the United States in a conflict, experts say. Mr. Lai leaves on Saturday for Paraguay, and is scheduled to stop in the United States on his way there and back. Beijing regards such transits in the United States as an affront to its stance that Taiwan is not an independent state. Mr. Lai is also the presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, which supports asserting Taiwan’s separate status, a position that Beijing condemns as “separatism.”

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, ” Organizations: Pacific, Democratic Progressive Party Locations: China, Taiwan, United States, Beijing, Paraguay

A powerful tropical cyclone was approaching islands in southern Japan on Tuesday, days after another one slammed into mainland China and the Philippines and left dozens of people dead or injured across the region. The new storm, Typhoon Khanun, was less than 200 miles southeast of a major United States military base in southern Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture on Tuesday, according to the United States military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii. (Tropical cyclones are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the northwestern Pacific.) Japan’s official forecast showed the storm heading northwest toward mainland China later in the week. But the meteorological authorities in China said that it might turn further north and head for Japan’s major islands instead.

Persons: Khanun Organizations: United Locations: Japan, China, Philippines, United States, Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, Hawaii, Atlantic, Pacific

☆ Taiwan Faces a #MeToo Wave, Set Off by a Netflix Hit
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-25 | by ( Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In some ways, the #MeToo movement points to a generational shift in attitudes brought about by the hard-fought advances won by women’s rights activists in decades past. Taiwan’s younger generation started learning about gender equality in elementary school, as part of curriculum changes enacted in 2004, and have since come of age. Taiwan’s younger generation has “a higher awareness of gender diversity and equality than the older generation,” said Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. Women’s rights groups have called for Taiwan to extend the statute of limitations for sexual harassment complaints, currently at one year. A survey by Taiwan’s labor ministry last year showed that only a tiny percentage of female respondents who said they had encountered sexual harassment at work had filed complaints.

Persons: ”, Wei, Ting Yen, Lai Yu, Bartosz, Lai, gossiped, “, ” Ms Organizations: Franklin, Marshall College, Lawmakers, Facebook Locations: Pennsylvania, Taiwan, Polish

☆ China Detains Taiwan-Based Publisher in National Security Investigation
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Amy Chang Chien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Taiwan-based publisher who disappeared while in China has been detained for suspected violations of security laws, Chinese authorities confirmed on Wednesday, fanning concerns in Taiwan that Beijing is sending a warning to the island’s vibrant publishing sector. The publisher, Li Yanhe, widely known by his pen name, Fu Cha, is a Chinese citizen who has been living in Taiwan since 2009. His company, Gusa Publishing, is well known in Taiwan for books that cast a critical eye on China’s ruling Communist Party. Mr. Li had returned to China early last month to visit relatives but fell out of contact shortly after, according to his colleagues and friends. Mr. Li’s detention is “a strong blow and will have a chilling effect,” Bei Ling, a writer from China living in Taiwan, said on Wednesday.

Gao Mingjun’s mother, who works and lives at the Foxconn industrial park in Zhengzhou, Henan, was forced to wait outside in the middle of the night when one of her co-workers tested positive.

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