KMT-CCP alignment
In addition to plans to “re-educate” Taiwanese, Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye (盧沙野) had two other familiar talking points in his interview on France’s BFM TV.
Familiar because they were also raised by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) in an interview with Deutsche Welle in March.
First, Lu (and Hung) grieved that support for unification with China had dropped drastically in Taiwan over the past 20 years. They attributed this not to the end of the KMT’s authoritarian rule, and Taiwan’s home-grown and hard-fought democratization, but to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “propaganda.”
Second, Lu lamented that the DPP uses “extremist propaganda” to “oppress” the KMT.
Hung, who recently visited “re-education camps” in China’s Xinjiang, must be pleased that her party has found an advocate in its erstwhile sworn rival, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an advocate that shares her contempt of the intelligence of Taiwanese voters, that is willing to air the KMT’s grievances on French television and even go as far as firing missiles over Taiwan to make a point.
Te Khai-su
Helsinki, Finland
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Art and cultural events are key for a city’s cultivation of soft power and international image, and how politicians engage with them often defines their success. Representative to Austria Liu Suan-yung’s (劉玄詠) conducting performance and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen’s (盧秀燕) show of drumming and the Tainan Jazz Festival demonstrate different outcomes when politics meet culture. While a thoughtful and professional engagement can heighten an event’s status and cultural value, indulging in political theater runs the risk of undermining trust and its reception. During a National Day reception celebration in Austria on Oct. 8, Liu, who was formerly director of the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As