Recently, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) published three of my articles on the US presidential election, which is to be held on Nov. 5. I would like to share my perspective on the intense and stalemated presidential election with the people of Taiwan, as well as Taiwanese and Chinese Americans in the US. The current consensus of both major US political parties is to counter China and protect Taiwan. However, I do not trust former US president Donald Trump. He has questioned the US’ commitment to defending Taiwan and explicitly stated the significant challenges involved in doing so. “Trump believes
The government is considering building a semiconductor cluster in Europe, specifically in the Czech Republic, to support Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) new fab in Dresden, Germany, and to help local companies explore new business opportunities there. Europe wants to ensure the security of its semiconductor sector, but a lack of comprehensive supply chains there could pose significant risks to semiconductor clusters. The Czech government is aggressively seeking to build its own semiconductor industry and showing strong interest in collaborating with Taiwanese companies. Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on Friday said that Taiwan is optimistic about building a semiconductor cluster in
China has successfully held its Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, with 53 of 55 countries from the African Union (AU) participating. The two countries that did not participate were Eswatini and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which have no diplomatic relations with China. Twenty-four leaders were reported to have participated. Despite African countries complaining about summit fatigue, with recent summits held with Russia, Italy, South Korea, the US and Indonesia, as well as Japan next month, they still turned up in large numbers in Beijing. China’s ability to attract most of the African leaders to a summit demonstrates that it is still being
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Thursday was handcuffed and escorted by police to the Taipei Detention Center, after the Taipei District Court ordered that he be detained and held incommunicado for suspected corruption during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on Monday last week that ordered Ko’s release without bail. That decision was appealed by prosecutors on Wednesday, leading the High Court to conclude that Ko had been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and it ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Video clips