Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s growing strength have accelerated Taiwan’s military overhaul. Taipei is exploring multiple ways to enhance its security, but unorthodox methods risk escalation. In early May 2023, a U.S. delegation consisting of 25 defense contractors arrived in Taiwan for a security summit, aimed to increase interoperability between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries. It marks the latest step[Read More…]

In another move that is deliberately raising tensions with China, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen held a series of high-level meetings in New York on Wednesday and Thursday with American politicians and representatives. The trip to the US is being held under the guise of a “transit” by Tsai as she proceeds to visit Guatemala and Belize in central America—two of[Read More…]

Is China really on the verge of invading the island of Taiwan, as so many top American officials seem to believe? If the answer is “yes” and the U.S. intervenes on Taiwan’s side — as President Biden has sworn it would — we could find ourselves in a major-power conflict, possibly even a nuclear one, in the not-too-distant future. Even if confined[Read More…]

While the world has been distracted, even amused, by the diplomatic tussle around China’s recent high-altitude balloon flights across North America, there are signs that Beijing and Washington are preparing for something so much more serious: armed conflict over Taiwan. Reviewing recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region raises a tried-and-true historical lesson that bears repeating at this dangerous moment in[Read More…]

Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine — “This is not a bluff,” he insisted on September 21st — the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it’s entirely possible, as ever more powerful U.S. weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats,[Read More…]

When the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan on 2 August 2022, it predictably enraged China because the island is part of China. The visit was thus a condescending challenge to China especially when it was backed up by a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group and military jets. Pentagon provided fighter jets as escorts for Pelosi’s congressional visit with[Read More…]

The U.S. has deployed two of its warships to the Taiwan Strait in a first such mission since the controversial visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, the Navy said on Saturday. Media reports said: USS Chancellorsville and USS Antietam, guided-missile cruisers, are sailing through international waters in the area, according to a statement from the U.S. 7th[Read More…]

 China had warned of “serious consequences” in the lead-up to the visit but has avoided any significant military escalation so far. Following the chaotic U.S. departure from Afghanistan in August 2021 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has sought to reaffirm its commitment to its allies and partners. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on August 2[Read More…]

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a second round of military drills near Taiwan to deter “political tricks” by the U.S. and the authorities in Taiwan, following a second trip by a group of U.S. lawmakers to the island, said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the PLA. Shi said the PLA’s Eastern Theater[Read More…]

On August 2nd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-level U.S. official to visit Taiwan since 1997, against all warnings from China and from American officials, who said it could lead to more aggressive military posturing. The objective of the visit was not clear, besides making a stand against China with the usual “democracy” rhetoric. What will America gain by[Read More…]

Amid the military standoff in the Taiwan Strait triggered by the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan last week, the US is planning to send warships through the Taiwan Strait “in the coming days,” the publication of the United States Naval Institute reported Tuesday. On Monday, the Pentagon confirmed earlier statements by the White House that the[Read More…]

U.S. Navy ships and planes will transit the Taiwan strait in the next two weeks. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned Chinese military drills in the area and said the Pentagon had ordered the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts to remain near Taiwan to “monitor the situation.” The USS Reagan and her accompanying ships are[Read More…]

Joint military exercises around the island of Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continued Wednesday with a joint blockade, sea assault and land and air combat trainings, involving the use of advanced weapons including J-20 stealth fighter jets and DF-17 hypersonic missiles after the drills started on Tuesday evening, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed on the[Read More…]

Mrs. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, US House of Representatives, had a play in Taiwan, which in its initial phase was not dignified. The play’s initial phase was like a Hide-and-Seek game: no public announcement about Taiwan visit and the planned visit’s time schedule; none definitely knew the Taiwan trip-plan, and then, her plane made an adventure like detour to the east[Read More…]

Tuesday’s protest in Taiwan. Photo: Fan Lingzhi/Global Times Civic groups, politicians, and business and industry representatives on the island of Taiwan on Tuesday protested against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit, amid China’s missile drill. Protest Media reports said: The Taipei-based Chinese Patriotic Concentric Association took to the street at a site near the Grand Hyatt hotel in the Xinyi[Read More…]

Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s visit to Sarajevo in 1914 was an instructive lesson on how the dumb do, at some point, ask for it.  Bosnia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was desired by the Kingdom of Serbia.  With the Serbs also well represented in Bosnia, a visit by the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was always to be tricky, if[Read More…]

The situation across the Taiwan Straits has drastically escalated as the military deployment from the Chinese mainland, U.S. and the island of Taiwan continues creeping up, after US and Taiwan-based media disclosed that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to visit the island on Tuesday night. Pelosi’s Taiwan visit is seen by China as a serious provocation and violation[Read More…]

The arrogance of power is especially ominous and despicable when a government leader risks huge numbers of lives in order to make a provocative move on the world’s geopolitical chessboard. Nancy Pelosi’s plan to visit Taiwan is in that category. Thanks to her, the chances of a military confrontation between China and the United States have spiked upward. Long combustible over[Read More…]

The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group, including a guided missile destroyer and cruiser, set out from Singapore on Monday heading toward the South China Sea and Taiwan. This deployment, clearly linked to the planned highly provocative visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, greatly heightens US military and political tensions with China, which[Read More…]

The Pentagon could send additional ships, aircraft and surveillance systems to protect US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if she proceeds with her plan to visit Taiwan, AP reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials. A “contingency plan,” which is being developed by the U.S. military, involves creating “overlapping rings of protection” for the U.S. House speaker during her flight to[Read More…]

For the moment at least, the Ukraine crisis has pushed the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan off the front pages. Nevertheless, on a near daily basis we read of what are presented as increasingly ominous incursions of Chinese aircraft into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Seldom, however, do we see a map showing the area claimed by[Read More…]

The probability is that the US President Joe Biden committed yet another diplomatic gaffe at a CNN town hall last Thursday that Washington had a commitment to come to Taiwan’s defence if it were attacked by China. Yet, like Biden’s gaffes usually, this one too was not without an element of deliberateness. Biden was even insistent. Indeed, there is an[Read More…]

By overstating China’s military readiness to launch an attack on Taiwan – and downplaying its own ability to withstand it – the opportunistic Taipei government is trying hard to attract more backing from the US and its allies. Taiwan’s parliament has just delivered its annual report on the capability of China’s military to launch an attack on the island. The document was[Read More…]

At the end of December 2016, both Taiwan and the world were shaken to the core, when images appeared inthe local press and online, depicting students paradingin Nazi uniforms proudly raising their hands in salute, an act banned in most of countries of the world. Mail Online reported: “A school in Taiwan has been condemned after students waved Nazi flags[Read More…]