Taiwan is now a geopolitical hotspot. Bloomberg Economics assesses the global economic impact of a war over Taiwan at $10 trillion – dwarfing the blow from the war in Ukraine or the COVID-19 pandemic. Some nations are trying economically and militarily to deter China from reunifying Taiwan by force. In fact, the best deterrent is … Read more
Chinese President Xi Jinping and former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou met on April 10 at 4 p.m. at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Earlier media reports suggested that Ma and Xi would meet on April 8. It has been speculated that the original date of the meeting was changed so that Ma … Read more
In a rare display of cooperation, Taiwan’s coast guard, following requests from China’s coast guard, initiated search and rescue missions with their counterparts for surviving sailors after a fishing boat capsized near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands and Matsu Islands, groups of heavily fortified islands only miles away from the Chinese mainland. On March 14, Taiwan … Read more
Taiwan continues to make headlines nearly two months past its presidential and legislative elections. Alongside debates about maritime law around Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, another issue that garnered attention in the West has been China’s balloon flights over Taiwan. Many have declared these balloons as the most recent example of Beijing’s gray-zone coercion tactics and urged … Read more
Since Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election in 1996, national elections have centered on national identity and the island’s future relationship with China. At present, however, the majority of Taiwan’s population largely identifies as Taiwanese, contrasting sharply with less than 3 percent identifying as Chinese only. This shift in identity, among other factors such as China’s … Read more
An incident in mid-February that led to the deaths of two Chinese fishermen continues to be politically contested between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps in Taiwan. Likewise, the Chinese government has sought to use the incident to escalate gray-zone activity around Kinmen, an outlying island of Taiwan at its closest 2 kilometers from Xiamen in … Read more
Taiwan on Tuesday protested China’s boarding of a tourist boat, as tensions rise around the Kinmen archipelago, which lies a short distance off China’s coast but is controlled by Taiwan. Taiwanese media reported the King Xia, carrying 11 crew and 23 passengers, was boarded by the Chinese coast guard for about 32 minutes on Monday. … Read more
How the ROC is defined could have profound repercussions for cross-Strait relations.
It’s been a month since Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won Taiwan’s presidential election. Since then, there have been a number of cross-strait developments – even though much of that time was taken up by the Lunar New Year, one of the most significant holidays for Taiwan and China. China was, unsurprisingly, … Read more
When Lai Ching-te led Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to an unprecedented third term in the presidency on January 13, international commentators were quick to note two things: First, a rejection of Beijing’s “preferred candidate,” Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), and, second, the deep polarization in Taiwan between the “independence-leaning” Green camp and “pro-China” … Read more