Officials from the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office pose with the city’s duck mascots Tsai Chi Ya and Yeh Chi Ya yesterday at an event appointing the characters as anti-vote-buying ambassadors.
Photo: Wang Chun-chung, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s growing defense preparations might be sending a stronger signal to the US than to Beijing, highlighting the need for Taipei to tailor its deterrence efforts to different audiences, a US security academic said yesterday. Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro made the comment during a Taipei Security Dialogue panel examining lessons Taiwan could draw from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Mastro said she was impressed by Taiwan’s increased defense spending, emphasis on asymmetric capabilities and efforts to prepare society for conflict, but questioned whom those initiatives were influencing. She said when she asked
A total of 400 foreign “high- level” professionals have been naturalized as Republic of China (Taiwan) citizens over the past decade as the government has eased nationality rules to attract talent from a wider range of fields, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The 400th high-level professional, who works in the electronics industry, was approved for ROC citizenship on Aug. 26, the MOI said. The MOI quoted the newly naturalized citizen as saying that Taiwan is a leader in fields such as semiconductors, electronics manufacturing, artificial intelligence development and energy technology. He also said
China has warned that it could cancel a planned US-China leaders’ summit if Washington approves new arms sales to Taiwan, a Japanese media outlet quoted sources as saying yesterday. US President Donald Trump, “apparently eager to showcase some diplomatic achievements ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections, places great importance on holding the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Japan’s Kyodo News reported. “While preparing for Xi’s upcoming trip, China has restated its position that the Taiwan issue is a ‘red line’ in bilateral relations,” the report said. The report said that when Xi met with Trump in Beijing in May, Xi said
SUB-LAUNCHED SUBOPTIMAL: The JL-3, an upgraded version of the missile test-fired earlier in the summer, would have the range to strike at much of the country Refits to Chinese nuclear submarines to carry JL-3 intercontinental ballistic missiles would put much of the US in striking distance, Taiwanese defense analysts said in a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council. Researchers from National Defense University’s Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies said that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in July test-fired a missile with a training warhead. Chinese state media reported without elaborating that a PLAN nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) launched a missile with a training warhead, which accurately hit the designated target area in the Pacific, the report said. The launch was a rare display
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