A senior Chinese Communist Party official named Li Keqiang (李克強), who is on close terms with President Hu Jintao, has been elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee along with three other men.
For years, many people in Taiwan, in the West and also inside China have been trying to find a "Chinese Gorbachev," who could do for China what former president Mikhail Gorbachev did for the Soviet Union: liberate the country from the firm hands of communism and bring freedom and democracy.
It may very well be that Li will be the man to watch, and while he will not become president of China for a long time to come, if ever, Li is probably the best candidate for a Chinese Gorbachev. He is in his early 50s, is very aware of what his future role might be and he could be the one to liberate the Chinese from the Communists.
There are two ways China could become a free, democratic country. One way is for the people to rise up in a revolution, which is not likely to happen under the current regime. The other is for a man to rise within the country who, like Gorbachev, could implement change by the force of his own personality and vision. I think Li Keqiang is the man. Watch him closely.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US