A Chinese attack on Taiwan is the greatest peril to the global system since the 1930s, Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe told the US-based cable news channel CNBC on Thursday.
The US is facing the fourth inflection point in its history that could result in an outcome similar to World War II should leaders mishandle the moment, he said at the channel’s virtual Evolve Global Summit, adding that China is the biggest risk factor.
The first three inflection points in US history were the two world wars and the Cold War, he added.
Photo: Screen grab from CNBC’s YouTube channel
When asked about US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempt to separately fund aid packages to Israel and Ukraine while tying the latter to domestic issues, Kempe said the US should keep the latter as its top priority.
China might see a wavering in US support of Ukraine as an opportunity to invade Taiwan, he said.
Autocratic regimes around the world are collaborating more than ever before, and although they are not plotting together against the US, those regimes share a desire to not have the US “run the global system any longer,” he said.
Meanwhile, the US and its allies are not sufficiently united to effectively counter collaboration between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Kempe said.
When asked about JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon’s remark that the world might be “facing its most dangerous time in decades,” Kempe responded in the affirmative, saying: “Geopolitics is coming into boardrooms in a way it has not in my lifetime.”
The shift has been building over the past five years with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russian President Putin’s subsequent invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, Kempe said.
Corporate executives are right in fearing global instability worsening, he said, adding that companies should reduce supply chain dependency on China and bolster their resilience.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its