In 2021, a 24-year-old Chinese student in Taiwan, surnamed Zhang (張), started sending e-mails under the name “Takahiro Karasawa,” in which he claimed that he had planted bombs in public places across the nation, such as airports, railway stations and the Taipei 101 skyscraper.
Zhang’s warnings all turned out to be hoaxes, but they made a lot of trouble for police officers and detectives, and disrupted the operations of transport companies.
There has recently been another spate of hoax bomb threats. As Zhang has left Taiwan some time ago, local authorities had no choice but to ask China to apprehend the suspect, in accordance with the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議). However, Beijing has so far not responded to this request. This raises suspicions about whether the bomb warnings are a “gray-zone operation” orchestrated by China.
Everyone knows how strictly China controls the Internet. Anyone who is found to have circumvented the “Great Firewall of China” to access foreign Web sites may be fined 1,000 yuan (US$142), which is twice as high as the fine for using illegal drugs. That Zhang could continue sending e-mails threatening Taiwan for three years — especially during periods when Taiwan is receiving international support against China’s military and non-military threats — makes one suspect that even if the Chinese government does not authorize his activities, it at least tacitly approves of them.
If that is so, it is unrealistic for the government to ask for China’s assistance through the aforementioned agreement. After all, the Chinese government itself is making military threats against Taiwan and constantly waging cognitive warfare by spreading disinformation.
China would like there to be more threats like this to spark turmoil in Taiwan, and allow the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and other pro-unification forces in Taiwan to push their “China superiority theory” and play the “cross-strait peace card.”
If so, how can anyone expect China to cooperate with Taiwan’s request to arrest the suspect?
John Yu is a civil servant in Taipei.
Translated by Julian Clegg
It is a good time to be in the air-conditioning business. As my colleagues at Bloomberg News write, an additional 1 billion cooling units are expected to be installed by the end of the decade. It is one of the main ways in which humans are adapting to more frequent and intense heatwaves. With a potentially strong El Nino on the horizon — a climate pattern that increases global temperatures — and greenhouse gas emissions still higher than ever, the world is facing another record-breaking summer, and another one, and another and so on. For many, owning an air conditioner has become a
Election seasons expose societal divisions and contrasting visions about the future of Taiwan. They also offer opportunities for leaders to forge unity around practical ideas for strengthening Taiwan’s resilience. Beijing has in the past sought to exacerbate divisions within Taiwan. For Beijing, a divided Taiwan is less likely to pursue permanent separation. It also is more manipulatable than a united Taiwan. A divided polity has lower trust in government institutions and diminished capacity to solve societal challenges. As my co-authors Richard Bush, Bonnie Glaser, and I recently wrote in our book US-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?, “Beijing wants
Taiwanese students spend thousands of hours studying English. Yet after three to five class-hours of English as a foreign language every week for more than nine years, most students can barely utter a sentence of English. The government’s “Bilingual Nation 2030” policy would do little to change this. As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies would soon be able to translate in real time, why should students squander so much of their youth and potential on learning a foreign language? AI might save students time, but it should not replace language learning. Instead, the technology could amplify learning, and it might also enhance
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has nominated New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) as its candidate for next year’s presidential election. The selection process was replete with controversy, mainly because the KMT has never stipulated a set of protocols for its presidential nominations. Yet, viewed from a historical perspective, the KMT has improved to some extent. There are two fundamental differences between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP): First, the DPP believes that the Republic of China on Taiwan is a sovereign country with independent autonomy, meaning that Taiwan and China are two different entities. The KMT, on the
RSS