As tensions across the Taiwan Strait continue to escalate, public attention to “whole-of-society defense resilience” has reached unprecedented levels in Taiwan. In response, the government in November released the guidebook In Case of Crisis: Taiwan’s National Public Safety Guide (the “Orange Book”)
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday announced that she would dissolve parliament on Friday. Although the snap election on Feb. 8 might appear to be a domestic affair, it would have real implications for Taiwan and regional security.Whether the Takaichi-led coalition can advance a strong
The situation in Japan unfolding over immigration in the past few years, and its social implications, are well worth Taiwan’s attention. As the number of Chinese middle class and working professionals relocating overseas rises, Japan has become one of their top destinations. This particular wave of
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As US President Donald Trump threatens to seize Greenland, tensions over whether his actions would undermine efforts to deter China in the Indo-Pacific region were laid bare at a major security forum in Hawaii last week.At the Honolulu Defense Forum, many current and former US government and militar
When reports spread that X users were asking the platform’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok to turn photographs of celebrities and nonpublic figures — including minors — into sexualized images, public outrage rightly focused on the harm inflicted on the victims. The majority of the content
When I began writing markets columns for Bloomberg Opinion (then called Gadfly) in 2017, my first piece was on Hong Kong’s enigma network, a complex web of companies with cross-shareholdings identified by activist investor David Webb.Webb, who died last week at the age of 60, was a rare Robin Hood i
Taiwan last week finally reached a trade agreement with the US, reducing tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15 percent, without stacking them on existing levies, from the 20 percent rate announced by US President Donald Trump’s administration in August last year. Taiwan also became the first country to s
In the past few years, a number of undersea cables and key energy pipelines across Europe and the northern Atlantic region have been sabotaged, putting governments on high alert. Cable sabotage has occurred in Asia and Pacific Island nations, resulting in the development of emergency backup and resp
As we enter layue (蠟月), or the last month of the lunar year, a profound, clarifying chill is setting in. It is dahan (大寒), the 24th and final act in the ancient, elegant drama of the traditional East Asian lunisolar calendar. It typically arrives around Jan. 20, a punctuation mark of deep cold befo
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From a certain angle, US President Donald Trump is in a matter of weeks doing what other leaders could never have dreamed about: Assembling an oil cartel with the sway to rival OPEC, and giving himself a kill switch for the energy-importing economy of the US’ prime geopolitical rival, China. Combine
Brazil’s leadership ambitions are having a bad moment.The White House’s historic intervention in Venezuela has exposed the geopolitical impotence of Latin America’s largest economy. The US not only removed the leader of a South American country in a matter of hours without suffering a single casualt
Few countries have attempted anything as ambitious as India’s rural jobs guarantee. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, any adult in the countryside who demanded work was entitled to a job on local public works within 15 days, failing which the government had to pay an
Following Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) Jan. 6 announcement that the city would provide free school lunches to elementary and junior-high schools from the next academic year, nine administrative regions in the past week launched their own programs, adding to the nine that already provide free l
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead.WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP?The global AI boom supported Taiwan
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said that Taiwan’s low birthrate is no longer a warning sign, but a fact of life. The declining birthrate has become a genuine national security crisis. More dire yet is that it is not merely low, but the lowest on Earth.W
A familiar refrain is often heard whenever cross-strait tensions rise: The more tense things get, the more exchanges are needed. Some say that communication should always replace confrontation. On the surface, that sounds self-evident and reasonable. The real issue is not whether to engage or commun
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