Taiwan-China Relations

Taiwan pledges deeper ties with US amid Chinese intrusion into island’s air space

ANI
Date: Sep 19, 2020

Taipei [Taiwan], September 19 (ANI): Amid Chinese intrusion into Taiwan's air space, President Tsai Ing-wen has pledged deeper ties with the United States during the visit of Keith Krach, US Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, to the nation.

According to an official statement, Taiwan President has committed collaboration with the US to strengthen ties.

"I hope that Taiwan and the United States continue to work together to promote peace, stability, prosperity, and development in the Indo-Pacific, positively impacting the region," said the President.

She further said, "Taiwan is committed to taking key steps, and engaging in exchanges of opinion to bring about a new milestone in the deepening of Taiwan-US economic cooperation."
"I hope that we can continue our collaboration and conversations, and launch more successful engagements, working together to advance an even friendlier, even closer Taiwan-US partnership," she added.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese military provokes India, Taiwan, but the message is for the US

China's military assertiveness reflects a growing sense of confidence and capability, but also one of confrontation, particularly with the United States

Business Standard
Date: June 26, 2020
By: Steven Lee Myers | NYT

China has long acted forcefully to defend the country’s territory and interests, but it is now operating with greater military firepower than ever before.

In the same week that Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in a deadly brawl, one of China’s submarines cruised through the waters near Japan, prompting a scramble of aircraft and ships to track its furtive movements. Chinese fighter jets and at least one bomber buzzed Taiwan’s territorial airspace almost daily.

With the world distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, China’s military has encroached upon its neighbors’ territories on several fronts throughout the spring and now into summer, flexing its military might in ways that have raised alarms across Asia and in Washington.

China’s military assertiveness reflects a growing sense of confidence and capability, but also one of confrontation, particularly with the United States over the pandemic, the fate of Hong Kong and other issues that China considers central to its sovereignty and national pride.

China claims all of its recent operations are defensive, but each increases the risk of a military clash, whether intended or not. That appears to be what happened on the night of June 15, when Chinese and Indian soldiers fought along their disputed border in the Himalayas.

It was the bloodiest clash on that frontier since 1967. According to Chinese analysts, Indian news reports and American intelligence reports, it also caused an undisclosed number of Chinese deaths, the country’s first in combat since its war with Vietnam in 1979.
[FULL  STORY]

Talks on 2nd flight to evacuate Taiwanese from Wuhan stalled due to Chinese obstruction: Health minister

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said plan to evacuate Taiwanese remaining in Hubei has been stalled by Chinese government excuses

Taiwan News
Date: 0020/02/16
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The China Eastern evacaation flight arrives at Taoyuan International Airporot on Feb. 3.  (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Negotiations for a second flight to evacuate stranded Taiwanese from Wuhan, China, epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, have been unfruitful, which Taiwan’s health minister blames on China's obstruction, CNA reported on Saturday (Feb. 15).

A group of relatives of the Taiwanese still stranded in China’s Hubei Province protested in front of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday, blaming the government for not being able to bring their loved ones home and hoping that the MAC would announce an evacuation plan before Monday, according to CNA.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said on Friday that the plan to evacuate remaining Taiwanese from Hubei via a second charter flight followed by quarantine had been in place for some time. However, the plan was stalled by the Chinese government after a variety of excuses, including a demand to follow the model of the first evacuation flight by using China Eastern Airlines instead of Taiwan's China Airlines as well as a demand to transport 890 Taiwanese over two days, the report said.

CNA quoted sources familiar with the situation as saying that right after the first evacuation flight on Feb. 3, Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency reported on a plan lacking Taiwan's consultation in which China Eastern would carry out a total of four flights from Feb. 4th to Feb. 5th, flying out 890 Taiwanese.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s January 2020 elections: Prospects and implications for China and the United States

Brookings
Date: December 2019
By: Kharis Templeman

Download the full report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Taiwan will hold its presidential and legislative elections on January 11, 2020. The incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), appears increasingly likely to prevail over her main challenger, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang (KMT). In the legislative campaign, the DPP now has better than even odds to retain its majority over the KMT and several smaller parties. As recently as six months ago, President Tsai’s path to re-election looked difficult. But the eruption of protests in Hong Kong and surprisingly robust economic growth in Taiwan, combined with the latest steps in Beijing’s ongoing pressure campaign, significant missteps by the opposition KMT and potential independent challengers, and continuing tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), have together left her and the DPP in a greatly improved electoral position.

The results of the election will have significant implications for the PRC’s Taiwan policy and for the United States. Under Xi Jinping, the PRC has pursued a multifaceted pressure campaign against the Tsai administration over the last four years, constricting Taiwan’s remaining international space, restricting government-to-government cross-Strait communication, and ramping up military exercises and covert influence operations, but also selectively engaging with China-friendly elements of Taiwanese politics and society as well as expanding the array of benefits available to Taiwanese on the mainland. If Tsai and the DPP remain in power after the 2020 elections, as now appears increasingly likely, this strategy will not have delivered on its objectives, and it will present Beijing with a hard choice: double down, recalibrate, or fundamentally reassess its Taiwan policy.

Depending on which option it chooses, Beijing’s response to the election could in turn create a new dilemma for U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Tsai Ing-wen has been a responsible steward of cross-Strait diplomacy, despite PRC hostility toward her, and a reliable partner with Washington. Her re-election would ensure the continuation of a stable hand at the Taiwan corner of the historically fraught U.S.-PRC-Taiwan triangular relationship. If Xi chooses to double down on the pressure campaign after Tsai’s probable re-election, the United States may be forced to respond more directly in order to maintain the cross-Strait status quo. But Washington does not currently have a particularly sophisticated toolkit of its own to deter Beijing’s coercive actions, many of which occur in a kind of diplomatic and economic “grey zone” between open hostility and peaceful friction. In the next four years, Taiwan could then emerge as an important test case for whether the United States can develop a more robust set of diplomatic and economic tools to counter the PRC’s rising influence across the Indo-Pacific.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese man arrested in China collected military secrets: Chinese media

Morrison Lee disappeared after sharing photos of Hong Kong protests and Chinese military vehicles

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/11/30
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Morrison Lee in Fangliao, Pingtung County (photo from Facebook). (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A Taiwanese man who went missing in China last August faces allegations of collecting military secrets, Chinese media reported Saturday (November 30).

Morrison Lee (李孟居) is an activist serving as adviser to the town of Fangliao in Pingtung County. He traveled to Hong Kong in August, where he allegedly took photos of the anti-extradition bill protests rocking the city before crossing over into China and posting pictures of Chinese military vehicles in Shenzhen.

The Nanfang Daily on Saturday described Lee as a key member of a “Taiwan Independence organization” and added that the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau had arrested him legally, the Central News Agency reported.

The mayor of Fangliao said he last spoke with Lee on the phone on August 20 in the morning, with the adviser telling him he was on the border between Hong Kong and China as the situation looked tense because of the presence of Chinese military vehicles. Lee then sent him a picture of the military vehicles, the mayor said.    [FULL  STORY]

Protesters march in Taiwan in solidarity with HK

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 30, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Undeterred by heavy rain, hundreds of thousands of protesters yesterday marched in Taipei and other

A man yesterday holds a yellow umbrella with hanging lanterns bearing prayers in Taipei during a rally in support of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Photo: Tu Chu-min, Taipei Times

cities in Taiwan in support of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Organizers said that the Hong Kong government should respond positively to the five demands made by the Hong Kong protesters, which they said are reasonable under the framework of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) has only agreed to withdraw the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Amendment, which ignited the months-long protests.

However, she has declined to form an independent committee to investigate alleged abuse of power by police; roll back the categorization of the protests after June 12 as a riot; release all student protesters and dismiss their charges; or allow universal suffrage.    [FULL  STORY]

China to ‘fight at all costs’ for ‘reunification’ with Taiwan: Defence minister | Video

CNA
Date: 02 Jun 2019

China will fight anyone who tries to interfere in its “reunification” with Taiwan, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday (Jun 2) in a combative speech peppered with threats against the United States over its military presence in Asia. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Wei said China would “fight to the end” if anyone tried to split China from Taiwan, which Beijing considers a sacred territory to be taken by force if necessary.    [GO TO VIDEO]

China to kick off year of sensitive anniversaries with major speech on Taiwan

Reuters
Date: DECEMBER 30, 2018 

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will kick off a year of sensitive anniversaries with a major speech

FILE PHOTO: Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to leave at the end of an event marking the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

on Wednesday by President Xi Jinping on Taiwan, China’s most sensitive issue.

In 2019 China will celebrate 70 years since Communist China’s founding. Anniversaries are always touchy events in China, where maintaining stability is the ruling Communist Party’s overwhelming priority.

Next year brings at least six that could unsettle the party, from June’s 30 years since the bloody Tiananmen crackdown to October’s 70 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic at the end of an even bloodier civil war.

But it will be self-ruled Taiwan, proudly democratic and claimed by China as its own, that will be the focus of Xi’s first important, pre-announced public event of the year.

State news agency Xinhua said on Monday that Xi will give a major speech in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the 40th anniversary of a key policy statement that led to a thaw in relations with Taiwan, the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan”.

Xinhua gave no other details.    [SOURCE]

‘Taiwanese Independence’ Has Many Definitions. None of Them Matter to China.

There are several viewpoints on what ‘Taiwanese independence’ truly means. Unless you’re in the CCP.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/09
By: Hsu Ting-wei (許庭瑋)

Credit: Reuters / Tyrone Siu

The Chinese government, and its internet users, have recently worked tirelessly to denounce and boycott the any momentum to Taiwanese independence.

From the group of (to paraphrase Beijing’s terminology) “pro-Taiwan independence artists” such as Chou Tzuyu (TZUYU, 周子瑜), Ruby Lin (林心如), and Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) visit to the “pro-Taiwan independence enterprise” of 85C Bakery Café in California, China has spared no effort to sanction these so-called pro-independence individuals and organizations.

China’s response may be shocking to many people, who scratch their heads in bewilderment wondering how, exactly, Beijing has determined that any of these people or café chains are in favor of an independent Taiwan.

In order to ease the pressures from Beijing on Taiwanese enterprises and businessmen, Sean Lien (連勝文) of the Kuomintang (KMT) specifically released a statement calling for calm with China, explaining that 85C Bakery Cafe “had no specific political involvement or preference.” While he was at it, he also took a swipe at Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and those who do, in fact, advocate for Taiwanese independence, saying they were responsible for provoking Beijing to react.
[FULL  STORY]

OPINION: Western Media Is Misreading the Taiwan Travel Act

The Taiwan Travel Act merely signals the potential of closer US-Taiwan ties, and from a reluctant and unpredictable White House at that.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/22
By: By Brian Hioe

Photo Credit: Reuters/達志影像

The passage of the TTA (TTA) has been hailed as a triumph by pro-Taiwan groups in the U.S. as representing a step forward in advancing U.S.-Taiwan relations, usually with the claim that the U.S. and Taiwan share democratic values. It is only natural for America and Taiwan to build stronger ties in the face of threats from China, they claim.

Yet coverage of the passage of the TTA by Western media (summarized here on The View from Taiwan) often acts as though the move were not in America’s strategic interest or founded on rational calculation. Instead, the TTA is cited as another dangerous move by the Trump administration, one which will be dangerously provocative of China.

These two polarized positions appear to share a sense of the TTA’s significance for future relations between the U.S., Taiwan, and China. However, both positions miss the point entirely. The passage of the TTA changes very little about the fundamentals of U.S.-Taiwan relations, but instead simply makes a new tactical move available in their diplomatic repertoire.   [FULL  STORY]