There are no obvious connections between the 7-Eleven retail chain in Japan and the Philippines’ national security concerns in the South China Sea. Here is one, one that also takes in Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC), the government of Denmark and Taiwanese plastic surgeons on the way.
Japan’s 7-Eleven on Friday last week posted on social media an image of uniforms worn by the chain store’s employees in various locations, including Taiwan, the US, Hawaii, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Cambodia and the Philippines.
If this was intended to promote a sense of camaraderie within the 7-Eleven family, it backfired. Taiwan was tagged with the name “China (Taiwan).” Taiwanese and Japanese posted comments complaining about the misrepresentation and insensitivity of the post. Japan’s 7-Eleven removed the post during the early hours of Saturday, admitted a lack of consideration and apologized.
Was it carelessness or was the company pressured to render Taiwan’s entry in this way?
As one commenter noted, the uniform for the US state of Hawaii was not tagged as “US (Hawaii)”; the Chinese province of Guangdong and the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong were represented using the same format as the Taiwan uniform. Does this suggest intention?
CBC on June 14 ran a story about alleged ties between a Taiwanese Buddhist group and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), describing one monk as being “between his home country, Prince Edward Island, and China.”
CBC on June 17 issued a “clarification,” saying that the story had included a reference to Taiwan as “a country that China is threatening to invade,” whereas “in fact, Taiwan is a self-governing island, and there is dispute around who controls it.”
It is unfortunate that CBC chose not to “take a fact-based attitude,” as CCP spokespeople often say.
There is no “dispute” about who controls Taiwan. The phrase “self-governing island” is contradictory: If Taiwan is self-governing, then presumably it controls itself. The CBC “clarification” muddied the waters, it is a distortion of logic designed to adhere, out of commercial cowardice, to CCP messaging. The “dispute” starts and ends in Beijing.
Nobody in Taiwan disputes who controls Taiwan, certainly not the Taiwanese doctors who attended the plastic surgeon Olympiad World Congress in Singapore last month. Unlike the Chinese delegation, they were unoffended by the event organizer’s listing of Taiwan as a participating nation. The Chinese attendees lodged a complaint and walked out, while the Taiwanese preferred to maintain their “fact-based attitude” and national pride.
The Danish government on May 6 revised registration practices allowing Taiwanese to list “Taiwan” as their nationality and replaced it with “China.” This was regarded as an expression of Copenhagen’s pragmatism, a political decision not based on a “fact-based attitude,” but designed to not offend Beijing.
A Washington Post report on Monday said that Manila is working behind the scenes to enhance defensive cooperation with Taiwan, in a security cooperation that is “further along” than publicly disclosed. Manila’s disengagement and departure from its observation of the “one China” policy is because the CCP has forced its hand: It has become clear that China presents a clear and present threat to the Philippines.
Within all challenges lies opportunity.
Taiwan cannot necessarily rely on getting its message across with the help of other governments, corporations or news agencies due to political and commercial considerations, but it can hope to get support from civic groups, non-governmental organizations, netizens and parliamentary groups, where there is sufficient awareness, sense of shared purpose and consequent motivation. That, and a willingness to adopt a fact-based attitude.
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
Heavy rains over the past week have overwhelmed southern and central Taiwan, with flooding, landslides, road closures, damage to property and the evacuations of thousands of people. Schools and offices were closed in some areas due to the deluge throughout the week. The heavy downpours brought by the southwest monsoon are a second blow to a region still recovering from last month’s Typhoon Danas. Strong winds and significant rain from the storm inflicted more than NT$2.6 billion (US$86.6 million) in agricultural losses, and damaged more than 23,000 roofs and a record high of nearly 2,500 utility poles, causing power outages. As
The greatest pressure Taiwan has faced in negotiations stems from its continuously growing trade surplus with the US. Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US reached an unprecedented high last year, surging by 54.6 percent from the previous year and placing it among the top six countries with which the US has a trade deficit. The figures became Washington’s primary reason for adopting its firm stance and demanding substantial concessions from Taipei, which put Taiwan at somewhat of a disadvantage at the negotiating table. Taiwan’s most crucial bargaining chip is undoubtedly its key position in the global semiconductor supply chain, which led