Leaked "minutes." "Bugged" offices. Secret backroom "deals" on arms sales. The commotion created by the alleged minutes of a meeting last week between American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (
But with the facts that have emerged, one can whittle away at the fantastic and consider the possibilities that remain -- assuming the document is real. The question is who stood to gain from releasing the "minutes" to the Chinese-language Apple Daily. Or, conversely, who stood to lose.
If the leak came from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), there would likely be two purposes. First, given its timing, it would expose the fact that the KMT did not agree to cease blocking an arms appropriation bill in a sudden burst of patriotism, but as the result of an under-the-table deal with AIT.
The second would be to portray the US as meddling in Taiwan's domestic affairs by choosing a favorite candidate as elections approach -- something AIT strongly denied yesterday.
In either scenario, the benefits for the DPP of making the "minutes" public would be minimal -- notwithstanding the precious extra air time given to DPP spokespeople -- and could further alienate Washington at a most inauspicious time.
As to how the DPP might have managed to get its hands on the "minutes," there is a number of possibilities: a leak by a disgruntled KMT member, a leak by a US official or, as KMT Legislator Su Chi (
But if the KMT leaked the document to the press, this would be to demonstrate that it is Washington's favorite and thus portray the DPP as a cornered animal willing to resort to dirty tricks -- assassinations, staged events, attacks on Chinese fishing vessels -- to win the elections.
But the problem here is that the DPP legislator involved in an as yet unconnected leak that broke the news of the Siew-Burghardt meeting, Sandy Yen (
Then there are Su Chi's allegations that the DPP "bugged" KMT offices. First, it is wise to remember that Su has a history of making extraordinary or untrue claims, like his assertion in October that the DPP government was developing nuclear weapons.
Second, political parties do not "bug" offices. Intelligence services do, meaning that a great number of individuals down the chain of command in the security apparatus would be involved.
As this would be illegal without a warrant stemming from a threat to national security, the DPP would be dealing itself a fatal blow by leaking the contents of any intercept, knowing full well that doing so would expose misuse of state resources.
Another possibility is that the information came from a Taiwanese intercept in the US. But leaking such information would create a diplomatic faux pas of awful proportions: Allies are not supposed to brazenly reveal that they are spying on each other.
Yen, formerly a California-based "overseas Chinese" legislator, is running again for the DPP, this time in Chiayi City, where the pan-green camp vote is likely to split, which would kill her prospects. It would be naive to think her role in this affair had nothing to do with her need to appear more aggressive than her Taiwan Solidarity Union rival.
All in all, it seems the DPP stands to lose the most from the leak. But the KMT and the AIT are not smelling like roses, either, and all of this sloppy behavior can only harm the democratic process.
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3 percentage point drop in turnout, Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years — or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the next five. Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so
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