The stalemate between the Chinese and Taiwanese governments has continued for more than 50 years and it is often unclear to outsiders just what the two sides are fighting about or what they want. The ruckus over the Olympic torch relay is a standard example of how the two sides communicate and may offer some insights for the uninitiated observer.
From the outset, China has wanted to leverage the Olympic Games to showcase its national might and project the torch relay in a way that would bundle Taiwan up with Hong Kong and Macau, giving the international community the mistaken impression that Taiwan is a part of China's territory.
At the same time, China has been changing Taiwan's Olympic designation from "Chinese Taipei" (
After months of negotiations, China's Olympic committee finally declared that Taipei would be listed as "a city of an outside territory" and invited Tsai Chen-wei (
This might have been the end of the matter, but when Tsai arrived in Beijing to sign the agreement, he found the agreement had been nothing but bait. New conditions had been added: Taiwan's national flag and anthem could not appear during the torch relay. Because of the changes, Tsai returned home empty-handed.
There are two lessons to be learned from this. First, China is not to be trusted. Even when an agreement is reached and publicly announced, changes can be expected. Raising the national flag and anthem at the signing of the agreement rather than during negotiations is a clear sign that China wanted it to fall through.
Secondly, Beijing's Taiwan experts don't understand this country. Requiring spontaneous public displays of the national flag to be banned as Taiwan nears two major elections is both humiliating and a violation of democratic rights. Such violations might be possible in China, but in democratic Taiwan, the right to display the national flag is a given and there's nothing the government could -- or should -- do about it.
By making such unreasonable demands, China even made the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate -- who favors eventual unification -- take an opposing stand.
Taiwan's involvement with the Olympic torch relay seems to have flickered and died in this process, which provides further fuel for local election campaigns. If the torch finally does pass through Taiwan, a lot of people will display the Republic of China flag and other flags offensive to Beijing. How ironic if images were to appear in the international media of police tussling with the public because the government would not allow them to display their flag.
Beijing may have tried hard to study public opinion in Taiwan, and more than once it has said that it pins its hopes on the Taiwanese public, but judging from its actions, it is clear that it doesn't have the first clue about what drives the Taiwanese.
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced that recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) have been approved, and that a recall vote would take place on July 26. Of the recall motions against 35 KMT legislators, 31 were reviewed by the CEC after they exceeded the second-phase signature thresholds. Twenty-four were approved, five were asked to submit additional signatures to make up for invalid ones and two are still being reviewed. The mass recall vote targeting so many lawmakers at once is unprecedented in Taiwan’s political history. If the KMT loses more
Taiwan’s unconditional support “for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India to safeguard national security and fight terrorist forces that cross borders to attack innocent civilians” marked a monumental shift in the relationship between Taipei and New Delhi. At a time when the Indian government sent several delegations of parliament members to convey to the rest of the world Pakistan’s role in sponsoring terrorism against India, Taiwan became one of the few nations that unequivocally supported India’s military operation, “Sindhoor.” Sure, this change in bilateral ties did not happen in a vacuum. Over the past decade,