In an international system increasingly shaped by coercion, power politics and transactional diplomacy, multilateralism is often dismissed as naive or obsolete — especially for smaller countries living next to much larger neighbors. Taiwan’s experience suggests the opposite. For Taipei, multilateral
As technological change sweeps across the world, the focus of education has undergone an inevitable shift toward artificial intelligence (AI) and digital learning. However, the HundrED Global Collection 2026 report has a message that Taiwanese society and education policymakers would do well to refl
We are used to hearing that whenever something happens, it means Taiwan is about to fall to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot change the color of his socks without China experts claiming it means an invasion is imminent. So, it is no surprise that what happened in Venezuela over the w
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US President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy warns that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” While the language is deliberately forceful, the underlying concern is not misplaced. Europe does, in fact, risk becoming a continent shaped by the decisions of others rather than an actor co
Hours after the US military detained and extracted Nicolas Maduro out of Caracas, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said his people should be prepared to “give their blood, even their lives” to defend Venezuela and the Cuban revolution. Even that might not be enough.With Maduro awaiting trial in New
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted live-fire military drills named “Justice Mission 2025” around Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday last week, simulating a blockade of the nation’s key ports, and said the drills were held to deter outside intervention and serve as a stern warning to “Tai
This should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting.For 2025, stoking regional and glo
The smoke has cleared from Taipei Main Station, but the fog of confusion remains. As Taiwan mourns the four lives lost and the 11 injured in the Dec. 19 attacks, the nation once again performs the grim ritual of asking “why?” The familiar answers are already circulating: Taiwan needs more metal dete
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Amelia Miller has an unusual business card. When I saw the title of “Human-AI [artificial intelligence] Relationship Coach” at a tech event, I presumed she was capitalizing on the rise of chatbot romances to make those strange bonds stronger. It turned out the opposite was true. AI tools were subtly
Beyond artificial intelligence (AI), another transformative technology that could reshape industries and reorder geopolitical power is finally moving out of the lab: quantum.The UN dubbed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. It has been marked by a flurry of announcements —
For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. Its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance — it marks the year the postwar global order expired and a new one was about to be born.Eighty years ago, as the world emerged from World
The latest poll released by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (台灣民意基金會) is not great reading for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or its chairwoman, Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文). The poll shows an increase of 7.3 percentage points to 38.4 percent in support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
China’s recent aggressive military posture around Taiwan simply reflects the truth that China is a millennium behind, as Kobe City Councilor Norihiro Uehata has commented.While democratic countries work for peace, prosperity and progress, authoritarian countries such as Russia and China only care ab
Whenever the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stages major military drills around Taiwan, public discussion tends to fixate on “this time”: How close did they come? How large was the formation? Which waters were declared restricted zones? Which aircraft approached from which direction? Those d
At the beginning of the year, there are usually various parties such as New Year celebrations and year-end banquets before Lunar New Year. I would like to call on the public: Whether your cheeks take on a red flush when you drink, never drive after drinking and never drink before driving. At many ba
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to raise the minimum hourly wage to US$30 captures a dilemma that is haunting most advanced economies. Even as wage floors rise, workers feel less secure. Yet by responding with blunt tools like the minimum wage, policymakers are overlooking the deeper pro
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