ARATS’ shady connections
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is ready to talk about corruption and violence with the opposition party. The latest events show that this is not such a bad idea, with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) the victim of an assault by pro-China gangsters.
Huang Ju-yi (黃如意), a suspected gangster, threatened Wang and admitted that Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), vice chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), was his friend.
In a few days Taiwanese leaders will meet ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林). Huang’s statement shows that Chen’s subordinate, Zhang, has close relations to gangsters.
So maybe it is not such a bad idea to talk about corruption and violence. Before Ma shakes hands with Chen, he should tell Taiwanese how concerned he is about the connections between gangsters and Chinese politicians and the violence and threats by pro-Chinese gangsters against a Taiwanese politician.
Before Ma strikes any deal with Chinese officials, he should let them know how ardent a fighter against corruption and violence he is and that he can’t be on the side of those who may be gangsters’ friends.
Hanna Shen
Taipei
In stores near you
In your insightful editorial on Tuesday (“Mao’s odd (and worrying) comeback,” Oct. 28, page 8), it was mentioned that images of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) are now appearing here and there around China, from Chongqing Medical University’s 20m high statue of Mao to large portraits of him at various Beijing sites during the Olympics. It is indeed an odd comeback for such a man.
I wonder if your editorial writer is aware that local 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan are now selling cute figurine dolls of Mao made by an outfit called Dong Jui International. Who in Taiwan would buy such dolls and why?
I didn’t see any dolls of Adolf Hitler on the counter.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
Taiwan should reject two flawed answers to the Eswatini controversy: that diplomatic allies no longer matter, or that they must be preserved at any cost. The sustainable answer is to maintain formal diplomatic relations while redesigning development relationships around transparency, local ownership and democratic accountability. President William Lai’s (賴清德) canceled trip to Eswatini has elicited two predictable reactions in Taiwan. One camp has argued that the episode proves Taiwan must double down on support for every remaining diplomatic ally, because Beijing is tightening the screws, and formal recognition is too scarce to risk. The other says the opposite: If maintaining
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), during an interview for the podcast Lanshuan Time (蘭萱時間) released on Monday, said that a US professor had said that she deserved to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize following her meeting earlier this month with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Cheng’s “journey of peace” has garnered attention from overseas and from within Taiwan. The latest My Formosa poll, conducted last week after the Cheng-Xi meeting, shows that Cheng’s approval rating is 31.5 percent, up 7.6 percentage points compared with the month before. The same poll showed that 44.5 percent of respondents
India’s semiconductor strategy is undergoing a quiet, but significant, recalibration. With the rollout of India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, New Delhi is signaling a shift away from ambition-driven leaps toward a more grounded, capability-led approach rooted in industrial realities and institutional learning. Rather than attempting to enter the most advanced nodes immediately, India has chosen to prioritize mature technologies in the 28-nanometer to 65-nanometer range. That would not be a retreat, but a strategic alignment with domestic capabilities, market demand and global supply chain gaps. The shift carries the imprimatur of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indicating that the recalibration is
RSS