The Taipei Times and other newspapers reported that James Soong emphatically stressed in a speech on Sunday to Taiwanese businessmen in Shanghai that "Taiwan independence" is not a choice (or option) for Taiwan.
The next day, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), during a TV interview, criticized Soong, saying, "You can oppose Taiwan independence, but you can't say Taiwan independence is not one of the choices." This debate about whether "Taiwan independence" is or isn't a choice sounds to me like debating whether we have a choice to build the Shihmen Reservoir. This, obviously, isn't a choice, because the reservoir is already there. It's a fact. Taiwan independence is also an indisputable fact, already realized. Taiwan is not ruled by Beijing, or anybody else outside Taiwan for that matter. It is ruled -- now -- by its people, who regularly elect their president and legislature in accordance with a democratic constitution.
Independence has already been achieved in the last 10 years or so. Taiwan's residents should now cherish and defend their independence.
Colman Bernath
Taipei
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Reports about Elon Musk planning his own semiconductor fab have sparked anxiety, with some warning that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could lose key customers to vertical integration. A closer reading suggests a more measured conclusion: Musk is advancing a strategic vision of in-house chip manufacturing, but remains far from replacing the existing foundry ecosystem. For TSMC, the short-term impact is limited; the medium-term challenge lies in supply diversification and pricing pressure, only in the long term could it evolve into a structural threat. The clearest signal is Musk’s announcement that Tesla and SpaceX plan to develop a fab project dubbed “Terafab”
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
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