Cross-strait negotiations have entered a more difficult period for Taiwan because China could not continue to provide this country with “goodwill” and “benefits” forever, the nation’s top security official said yesterday.
Cross-strait negotiations have entered a “deep water” period and from now on Beijing will likely change its policy from allowing Taiwan to “reap the benefits” of engagement to “exchanging interests,” National Security Bureau (NSB) Director Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) said.
Addressing legislators at a Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting on cross-strait relations, Tsai said relations had been relatively stable in recent years, but that the risk of conflict remained high.
That risk stems from variables such as January’s presidential election and the change in leadership in Beijing next year, he said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), who will step down next year, is considered a moderate with regard to Taiwan, but if his moderate policies were reviewed, criticized and then lost influence after a new leadership established itself in Beijing, and if hardliners increased their influence, cross-strait relations could become very unstable, Tsai said.
Officials in Beijing who handle Taiwan-related affairs could be replaced once Hu goes and it would take a long time before China’s new players and their intentions were known, Tsai said.
The easier aspects of cross-strait negotiations have mostly been completed and the negotiations have now entered “deeper waters,” which means China will pay more attention to meeting its own interests and those of Chinese firms, he said.
If Beijing concludes that its “goodwill” strategy is not achieving its aims toward the unification issue, then it could change course and adopt more drastic measures, Tsai said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS