Taiwan

Will the last country to recognize the country turn out the lights?

Carrots, sticks, and fashion diktats.

Washington shouldn’t neglect Taiwan and Hong Kong.

There's no such thing as a free gift! When I worked in Congress as an aide, I took a meeting with representatives of a foreign government about trade issues. They gave us all little business card holders as de minimis gifts. An older colleague, after the meeting ended, took all of them and threw…

China may only be implementing sanctions against North Korea in fits and starts, but it has shown no trouble sanctioning its democratic neighbors, South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, for the "crime" of trying to protect itself from North Korean missiles—Beijing loathes the THAAD missile defense…

It's almost as if Donald Trump "looked into Xi Jinping's soul" when the Chinese president visited Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago. What else can explain the U.S. president's bizarre affinity for the repressive Chinese dictator, which he laid out in a disturbing interview with Reuters on Thursday?

In 1992, in anticipation of the 1997 reversion of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to communist Chinese rule, the United States Congress enacted the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act. The act made the findings that "the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China,…

China continues to seeth over Donald Trump's overtures to Taiwan. First, there was in the phone call between Trump and Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. Now, the Washington Post reports:

Thirty-seven years is a long time to wait for a phone call. That's how it must have felt to the Taiwanese people when their president, Tsai Ing-wen, had a 10-minute talk with Donald Trump on December 2—the first direct conversation between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect…

Thirty-seven years is a long time to wait for a phone call. That’s how it must have felt to the Taiwanese people when their president, Tsai Ing-wen, had a 10-minute talk with Donald Trump on December 2—the first direct conversation between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect…

Did Donald Trump just set the stage for World War III?

2016 had been a tough year for Taiwan, the jewel of an island nation that China views as an illegitimate breakaway province. In January, it elected a new president–a progressive female law professor who takes a decidedly dim view of the Communist tyranny a few hundred miles from Taiwan's shores.…

On Friday, Donald Trump became the first president-elect to speak to the leader of Taiwan since 1979. As the Financial Times notes, Trump's call could anger the Communist Chinese regime in Beijing:

Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen's National Day address—Monday marks the 105th birthday of the Republic of China—was remarkable in the issues that it foregrounded. What was notable, in fact, was how utterly quotidian Taiwan's first female leader's remarks were. The large majority of the recently…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Michael Warren recaps the Veep debate; Jeffrey Anderson updates us on the Obamacare death spiral; and Ethan Epstein tells us about a lump of Taiwanese jade that looks like a cabbage—no foolin'!

It may seem like a minor, technical issue, but it became clear to me on a visit to Taipei earlier this month that the Taiwanese government was furious that it might be blocked from even observing the triennial meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is just getting…

Taibo City, Taiwan

Taibo City, Taiwan

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is nothing if not consistent. His incompetent (and unremittingly cruel) leadership extends not only to his miserable domestic record. Kim is proving to be a disaster on the international scene as well.

As tensions in Asia, particularly in and around the South and East China Seas, have steadily risen in the past eight years, Taiwan has emerged as an island of unexpected tranquility. The thaw in cross-Strait relations brought about by the era of the Nationalist (KMT) presidency of Taiwan’s Ma…

For years, China’s friends in the U.S. have argued that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened: Taiwan would unify with China under the formula of “one country, two systems.”  Given the mainland’s advantages economically, demographically and militarily, it seemed improbable to…

The student leaders of Taiwan’s Sunflower movement, having occupied the legislative chambers in the capital of Taipei for the past three weeks, recently announced plans for demonstrators to vacate the floor of the Legislative Yuan on April 10. The students have been expressing their strong…

Taipei

In the past three decades, there have been three big stories in East Asia. 

Beijing and Washington got the result they actively sought in Taiwan’s election: a second four-year term for President Ma Ying-jeou and the defeat of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party. China and the United States—as well as Taiwan—must now live with the consequences of that outside…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should follow her successful Burma initiative with a visit to Taiwan before next month’s presidential election.

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that the Japanese government is close to settling on the F-35 Lightning as the much-needed replacement for its F-15 fighter.  That’s exceptionally good news for a program that’s both key to preserving American military preeminence and at a lot of risk due…

The Obama administration has moved to assert America’s Asia policy by vigorously engaging Southeast Asian nations concerned about China’s recent posture. On his trip to the region earlier this month, the president affirmed that the United States is, and will remain, a Pacific power. He made the…

For those hoping to get a confirmable job in some future Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney administration, today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing is a good reminder of why it’s best to get that job earlier rather than later. Attempting to get confirmed for a position in an area that already has…

Some China-Taiwan specialists and other foreign policy experts have been caught up lately in a declinist narrative that has China overtaking the United States not only economically but also in terms of military supremacy in the Asia-Pacific. They see that power shift as putting democratic Taiwan at…

Taipei, Republic of China —Aircraft carriers are the cause of apprehension here in Taiwan. The concern is that, in the event of any future hostile action taken by China against Taiwan, U.S. carriers would be taken out by China’s increasingly capable arsenal of anti-ship missiles—and that the…

The Obama administration has established a new (even lower) standard for kowtowing to Beijing. In the first instance, the White House has decided against selling Taiwan 66 new F-16s the government in Taipei has been asking for over the last few years. With an aging inventory of Taiwan air force…

Rick Perry only entered the presidential race a week and a half ago. As governor, Perry’s foreign policy experience has been limited. And his views on these issues have hardly been relevant, even if they’ve been known, since few care what the chief executive of Texas thinks about America’s…

A delegation of the People's Liberation Army, the largest group of Chinese military officers ever to visit the United States, recently toured the Pentagon and other U.S. defense facilities. Part of their mission was to further erode and finally end the congressional ban on weapons and technology…

In the judgment of one of my most knowledgeable colleagues, this is the best Taiwan news animation ever:

One of the oddities of “the realist” school of international relations in America is how profoundly unrealistic its proponents’ policy prescriptions typically are. The latest example of this phenomenon is found in the new issue of Foreign Affairs in an article written by Charles Glaser of George…