China | The View from Taiwan

Entries for the ‘China’ Category

Establishing Trust with the Chinese

Jul.31, 2008 in China, John McCain, Obama, US

Longtime Washington and US government China policy analysts Richard C. Bush and Jeff Bader are out with an all-too Establishment piece that seems to live in its own dreamworld on US-China relations, calling on Obama and McCain to Tread Lightly On China:
The Beijing Olympics coincide with our party conventions heralding the countdown to November’s presidential [...]

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Two on China

Jul.26, 2008 in China

Presidential candidate McCain calls on China to release Tibetan prisoners (that would be everyone in Tibet, right?):
After a 45-minute meeting with the Dalai Lama, McCain said the Beijing Olympic Games in August provide an opportunity for China to demonstrate it recognises human rights.
He also said the Dalai Lama is merely seeking basic rights to preserve [...]

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Talk Given by Randall Shriver, July 17, 2008, on Taiwan-US relations

Jul.18, 2008 in China, John McCain, Ma Ying-jeou, Obama, Taiwan-US relations, arms freeze

Author and blogger J Michael Cole, a frequent commentator in the Taipei Times, and an attendee at Thursday’s presentation.
On Thursday the 17th I had the great good fortune to attend a talk given by Randall Shriver, a longtime Taiwan booster who has held a number of US government posts concerned with Taiwan and Asia policy. [...]

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CS Monitor on Cross-Strait Flight Agreement

Jun.14, 2008 in China, Cross-Strait relations, direct flights

Jonathan Adams has an excellent piece in the CS Monitor on the recent agreement, full of useful insights and details, covering almost all the main points.
…..Analysts cautioned that Friday’s deal was just the first – and easiest – step on the long and difficult road toward reconciliation between the two bitter rivals. Critics in Taiwan [...]

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Agreement Inked on Regular Direct Flights

Jun.13, 2008 in China, airlines, media

Reuters is one of many media outlets announcing the big news:
China and Taiwan signed a landmark deal on Friday to launch regular flights between the long-time rivals as politics was put aside in favour of practicalities in the first such talks in almost a decade.
Apart from special holidays, there have been no regular direct flights [...]

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Ma Fluffs it Again

Jun.05, 2008 in China, Ma Ying-jeou, Tiananmen

I’m trying to avoid several things with this blog — I don’t want it to become the “What has Ma Fucked Up Today?” blog. Nor do I want it to become the Taiwan Democracy Deathwatch, a four year wake. So please forgive me for being massively busy the last week or so and not blogging [...]

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DPP Statement on Wu-Hu Lovefest

May.31, 2008 in China, Cross-Strait relations, KMT, diplomacy

Xuenfang Battery in Tainan, on Guanghua Street, now enclosed in the grounds of a Buddhist nunnery.
The DPP came out with a statement on Saturday morning saying that the Wu-Hu talks had inflicted “five major wounds” on Taiwan:
Harming Taiwan’s democracy by regressing the pattern of cross-strait negotiations back before even the October 1992 semi-public SEF-ARATS talks [...]

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Ming Vases and Media Places

May.30, 2008 in China, F-16s, KMT, neocons

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, abusing westerners for their propensity to take China’s feelings seriously, once observed that China was different: it had to be treated like a Ming vase. No better example can be found than the Bush Adminstration’s treatment of China:
The U.S. ambassador to China, Clark T. “Sandy” Randt, [...]

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Taiwan News: Wu gives away Taiwan

May.29, 2008 in China, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou

Taiwan News has another hard hitting editorial, this time on how KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung has sold out the island and its vision of pluralistic democracy:
In the midst of the storm over Tuesday’s lightening hike in petroleum prices by the new Kuomintang government, virtually all of our citizens have failed to notice that the [...]

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SCMP Commentary on Ma

May.29, 2008 in China, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, media

And now for something completely different: I got flipped a version of Michael Fahey’s commentary in the South China Morning Post, and a version of that now appears here. Compare this to the two pieces in the post below this one:
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Taiwan’s conservative new president Ma Ying-jeou began his term with burst of symbolic activity and [...]

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"Both sides are tied by blood…"

May.27, 2008 in China, KMT, universities

“Signs of warming ties” is how the international media defines KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung’s current visit to China. Reuters reports:
China and Taiwan edged closer to a resumption of fence-mending talks on Tuesday when the chairman of the island’s ruling party echoed the Chinese line that both sides are part of a single nation.
China, which has [...]

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Contrasting Messages

May.22, 2008 in China, DPP, KMT, Tsai Ing-wen

First, from Reuters, is a very long piece on China’s response to Ma’s speech. The key point is right up front:
China vowed on Thursday to seize a chance for reconciliation with Taiwan and respect the desire of Taiwan’s people to be their own masters, a sign it is in no hurry to bring the island [...]

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Japan Focus on Indonesia, China, Japan, and LNG markets

May.18, 2008 in China, Indonesia, Japan, energy

Japan Focus has a couple of good articles this week. For WWII buffs, Herbert Bix has a great article on Hirohito’s role in WWII. But of interest for Taiwan is an article on natural gas exports from Indonesia to Japan and China. The article focuses on Japan’s complex relations with Indonesia in acquiring resources and [...]

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Old WHO Stuff

May.15, 2008 in China, WHO

A friend passed me these links to old but still insightful stuff on Taiwan’s WHO entry. First up is a piece by Tkacik and Lee in National Review from 2004…..
The incident was not unnoticed in Taipei. Some Taiwanese legislators questioned why the boy was allowed to enter Taiwan when, earlier in the week, the government [...]

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Is Dual Recognition Possible?

May.14, 2008 in China, Kiribati, South Seas Islands, diplomacy

Bruce Jacobs had a nice commentary in the Taipei Times today arguing that Taipei really ought to pursue some kind of “dual recognition” format:
Second, Taiwan needs to broadcast much more clearly that it is willing to have joint recognition with China. At least from the outside, it appears that Taiwan still breaks relations with countries [...]

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