Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, one of the most respected US academics specializing in Taiwan studies, has died in Washington following a long battle against cancer.
Her 2009 book, Strait Talk: US-Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China, examined the political and security issues in the triangular relationship.
Tucker’s books, speeches and private advice influenced US policy toward China and Taiwan over the past two decades.
“She made a great contribution to understanding Taiwan’s role in American diplomacy and before that in understanding American diplomacy in a historical context,” former American Institute in Taiwan director Douglas Paal said.
“On top of that, she was a really caring professor who helped her students develop careers,” he said.
A professor of history at Georgetown University and at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Tucker specialized in US relations with China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
“She was a first-rate historian of Sino-American relations, a passionate teacher and a dedicated public servant,” School of Foreign Service dean Carol Lancaster said.
In the middle of the 1980s, Tucker served in the Office of Chinese Affairs at the US Department of State and at the US embassy in Bejing.
Tucker was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She edited the 2005 book Dangerous Straits about contemporary problems in US-Taiwan-China relations and was the author of Uncertain Friendships: Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US, 1945-1992, which won the 1996 Bernath Book Prize.
The Wilson Center issued a statement saying that Tucker — a Wilson Center scholar — was one of “the most respected historians of her generation.”
She is survived by her husband, Warren Cohen, who is also a Wilson Center senior scholar.
“Few in Washington compared to her in terms of incisive and straightforward analysis of US relations with both Taiwan and China,” said Gerrit van der Wees, a senior political adviser at the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
Tucker was “unsparing” in her criticism of former US president Richard Nixon and former US national security adviser Henry Kissinger for giving “Beijing what it wanted in order to make a deal” over Taiwan, Van der Wees said.
Recently, she expressed strong reservations about the willingness of China’s new leaders to move in what she considered the “right” direction.
“A more realistic appraisal of China’s leaders reveals a group of conservative and cautious men highly unlikely to take bold steps toward structural reform,” she wrote.
“Their priority is to keep themselves in power,” Tucker said.
“Her hard-nosed realism and the charm with which she was able to present her arguments will be dearly missed,” Van der Wees said.
“She was a great historian and a lady who stood by the basic principles for which the US stands,” he said.
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS