The Honduran government’s decision in 2023 to end diplomatic relations with Taipei in favor of Beijing came as a blow to Taiwan’s diplomatic presence in Central America. Two years later, after promises of large-scale investment in infrastructure development and aid from China, the economic and trade
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes.On paper, it
Choosing the right schoolSix years ago, I visited Chiao Cheng Primary School in Sanyi (三義), Miaoli County, with a simple question: Could my son enter Taiwan’s public education system?At that time, I knew very little about school rankings or curricula. What drew me to the school was the quiet beauty
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We are living in an age of global disruption. Supply chains are being reconfigured to avoid dependence on any one producer or country. Trade ties are being upended by high and unpredictable tariffs — and the threat of more. Longstanding alliances are being strained by doubts about partners’ reliabil
In the summer of 2015, tens of thousands of angry Japanese took to the streets of Tokyo.Changes to security legislation pushed by then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe were considered by some to be so controversial, so against the spirit of Japan’s pacifist constitution, that protests against them
On the day the British government launched a high-stakes consultation to consider fresh ways of funding the BBC in the digital era, the corporation could have done without another difficult news event of its own. US President Donald Trump’s decision to follow through on threats to sue over the conte
Taiwan’s cooperation with Poland highlights how drones, like semiconductors, are becoming strategic assets. Taiwan has a “central and eastern Europe supply chain resilience plan,” and is cooperating with Poland on drone production, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said in an interview
Australia has become the first country to ban children under 16 from using social media platforms, a milestone in the history of technology governance. For Gen Z, a social media and phone-based childhood has given rise to a host of issues that endanger their mental health and well-being: a silent “d
During his trip to China, French President Emmanuel Macron discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) issues of crucial importance for the future of the international community.The first issue — felt most acutely across Europe — relates to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the identification o
To address systemic loopholes that allow for draft evasion, the government this week previewed proposed changes that would require conscripts with hypertension to undergo 24-hour continuous blood pressure monitoring and substantially revise other physical fitness standards determining eligibility.Th
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On a dusty afternoon in the northern reaches of China, dozens of giant trucks line up to fill up on coal for washing and processing. Others wait to take away tonnes of waste rocks and dirt. It is a common sight at any large, open-pit operation — except the juggernauts at the Yimin mine in Inner Mong
It was a rare success for international courts struggling to resist a rising tide of official lawlessness. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a leader of the notorious, government-backed Janjaweed militia that committed genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region from 2003 to 2005, was jailed for 20 years last w
In an editorial “The Pope Doesn’t Understand China” published in the New York Times in October 2018, prominent former Hong Kong bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) wrote of the difficulties of Catholic priests in China following an agreement between the Vatican and Beijing in 2018. In one section, he d
If anyone still interprets Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) conviction as a case tried in accordance with the law, they are either naive or willfully blind. The outcome of this verdict became apparent long before the day of sentencing — it was determined the very moment Hong Kong’s China-imp
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Monday announced that he would not countersign any legislation passed by the Legislative Yuan that is unworkable or patently unconstitutional. The opposition has condemned this as “administrative authoritarianism” and deemed it damaging to the constitutional system. Cho
In the row over South Korea’s newly launched e-arrival card system listing Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” the government’s priority should be to address the issue with a level head through an open dialogue and diplomatic negotiation. It should articulate its position clearly in seeking a correction and
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