In the days of the White Terror it was common for suspected dissidents to be seized by armed men in broad daylight or dragged from their beds in the middle of the night.
Others simply disappeared, never to be heard from again. Under the heavy surveillance of the Taiwan Garrison Command, the public lived in fear.
After decades of hard work to achieve the democracy and freedom Taiwan enjoys today, the recent incident concerning Democratic Progressive Party Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) is cause for alarm.
Following reports last week that Wang allegedly instigated an incident in which China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing (張銘清) fell over, media outlets reported on Monday that Wang’s life had been threatened by a suspected gangster who demanded that he offer an apology to Zhang.
Cable Channel CTI filmed as Huang Ju-yi (黃如意) sat next to Wang on a sofa and described to him how to present his apology, pounding him on the chest twice.
Wang later told reporters: “A gangster told me, ‘You had better offer an apology to the camera, or I could kill you with one shot.’”
Given past instances in which politicians have staged acts to gain media exposure, it is understandable why some are harboring skepticism over the reports and why they are quick to say Wang staged the incident.
The case is under investigation and until the truth is revealed, the repercussions of the incident can only be speculated on.
If the threat against Wang is real, it should not be viewed as an isolated case. Wang would not be the only victim.
One of the benefits of this democracy is the right to free speech.
People can voice their ideas without having to live in fear of the consequences. Is Taiwan to return to a time when critics are taken away by KGB-like secret agents or gangsters?
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) record of close relations with organized crime has been well documented, and many of these gangs are closely tied to China.
A list issued by Foreign Policy magazine this May ranked Taiwan’s Bamboo Union gang as one of the world’s four most dangerous associations.
The Mainlander gang is known for “drug smuggling, human trafficking and ‘silencing’ journalists as far away as Northern California,” it said.
According to the magazine, the Bamboo Union “emerged as the largest of several Beijing-backed assassination machines in the wake of the communist takeover of mainland China.”
By no means are we suggesting that the Bamboo Union is behind the alleged threat against Wang. However, if authorities fail to take Wang’s statement seriously but to treat it as a petty crime, it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that a policewoman at last Saturday’s anti-government rally was on to something when she told rally-goers that her real boss was “the People’s Republic of China.”
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS