Landslide Electoral Win for President Tsai Incumbent presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on January 11 won a landslide victory against her Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponent, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, defeating him by almost 20 percentage points. Tsai, who garnered a record-breaking 8.17 million votes (57.13%), in her victory speech…
A dispute between Taipower and New Taipei City over interim spent-fuel storage is complicating the shuttering of nuclear power plants. After the second reactor of the Chinshan nuclear power plant reached the end of its 40-year licensing period last July, the plant became the first of Taiwan’s three nuclear power facilities to enter the stage…
The recently concluded 9th Term of the Legislative Yuan was the first time the Democratic Progressive Party held majority control of the lawmaking body and thus also the first time that the DPP controlled both the legislature and the executive branch. What was the result in terms of legislative performance? Of the 6,252 bills proposed…
Chinese Defector Makes Espionage Claims Australian media on November 23 reported that a man claiming to be a former Chinese intelligence agent had defected to Australian authorities in October, requesting asylum there. Wang Liqiang, 23, whose wife and young child currently live in Australia, claims to have taken part in several espionage activities. These include…
Left with just 15 diplomatic allies, Taiwan now looks to safeguard its most vital remaining relationships while strengthening unofficial ties with key democracies. Since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, China has stepped up efforts to curtail Taiwan’s international space. Luring away Taiwan’s diplomatic allies has been integral to this campaign. In September,…
AmCham committees have the chance to interact with the appropriate government agencies. When AmCham Taipei released its 2017 Taiwan White Paper, it expressed regret that not a single one of the 80 issues cited in the previous year’s edition as detriments to the investment climate had been completely resolved. Fortunately, AmCham’s concern was shared by…
Taiwan currently leads the world in terms of its procurement of U.S.-made arms, with a total of US$10.7 billion in sales already approved this year by the U.S. Department of State under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The US$8 billion F-16V acquisition accounts for the bulk of this amount, while an agreement for 108…
Supporters say the acquisition of new F-16 Vipers is key not just to defending Taiwan’s airspace, but also to integrating the local manufacturing sector into global supply chains. This August the U.S. government formally offered Taiwan the F-16 fighter jets that it had requested more than a decade ago. It would be the first U.S….
Foreign Dignitaries Attend National Day Observance of the 2019 National Day – also known as Double Ten because it occurs on October 10 – featured Taiwan’s new immigrant communities and attendance by a large number of foreign dignitaries. More than 6,000 Taiwanese living abroad returned for the celebration, the highest number in three years. A…
When I arrived in Tainan in the summer of 1991, not even the city’s main roads had bilingual signs. As an English tutor, I had to visit households in different neighborhoods, and thus quickly had to learn how to read Chinese addresses. A few years later, romanization began to appear at major intersections. More recently,…
