On Wednesday last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) met with former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for the first time in nine years. It is noteworthy that Xi has removed his own term limits and virtually eliminated opposition within the party, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), to which Ma
In today’s era of breakneck-paced digital development, social media use has become a double-edged sword. It provides an unprecedented degree of connection, but with that comes unprecedented privacy and security risks.TikTok, a social media platform bewitching young people around the globe, has once
Fentanyl ploy will backfireIn a recent report, the US Congress pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been subsidizing the production of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs through measures such as tax incentives. The CCP government’s practice contributes to the international trade in
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The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international e
After months of delays, the US House of Representatives on Saturday and the US Senate on Tuesday finally approved a US$95 billion foreign aid package that includes funding for Taiwan. The bills were passed with bipartisan support, with House Speaker Mike Johnson saying that “we have to do the right
The tragic death of a judge who fell from a building on April 12 accentuated the issue of long-term overtime work endangering the mental and physical health of judicial officials.Many have advocated for an increase in personnel or adjustments in case distribution to relieve the overworked judicial s
When J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) takes up his new role as minister of economic affairs next month, he will need to move fast if he is to salvage one of the government’s signature projects. Policy conflict and misguided goals threaten to sink outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) hopes of achieving renewable-en
With tensions between China and the Philippines heating up, face-offs have not only occurred in the South China Sea, but the Philippines also skipped the Western Pacific Naval Symposium — which received delegations from 29 countries, including the US — hosted by China.Lately, many Chinese exchange s
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Now that the US House of Representatives, acting in an unusually bipartisan way, has finally passed a US$61 billion aid package for Ukraine, the big question is what the Ukrainians should spend it on.This aid comes not a minute too soon. Russia has been gathering momentum both on the ground and in t
If you believe the Chinese government, the country does not import any oil from Iran. Zero. Not a barrel. Instead, it imports lots of Malaysian crude. So much so that official Chinese customs data showed it somehow buys more than twice as much Malaysian oil as Malaysia actually produces.Impossible?
On Tuesday last week, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unanimously passed the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet bill. The US House of Representatives had passed the resolution on Feb. 15. The next stage is for it to be reviewed in the
Recent media reports said that a district court judge committed suicide by jumping from a building because he was mentally distressed due to heavy work pressure. Official statistics shows that in 2017, the number of ordinary and special criminal cases totaled 482,428. Seven years later, the most con
Last year, then-Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada in an annual defense report said: “China is rapidly enhancing its military capability qualitatively and quantitatively, including nuclear and missile forces, while continuing and amplifying its unilateral changes to the status quo by force
The passage of the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet bill, by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday last week, to be sent to the US Senate for a vote, marks a pivotal moment in international relations, one that could significantl
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India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition can sweep three out of every four parliament seats as he crisscrosses the country to charm voters. Analysts and election strategists from his party say the task is not entirely impossible, but is likely
Violence lurks in nearly all of Latin America’s major cities. Even capitals that have traditionally been considered peaceful are coming to resemble hotspots such as Reynosa and Tijuana, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro.Although Latin America has more than 180 million people