China Digital Times

CHINA NEWS SECTION: Taiwan

• Taiwan-China Business Ties Grow As Barriers Fall

  

  From AP:

  China and Taiwan are seeking new business ventures in each other’s territories like never before as investment and travel barriers fall between the once bitter enemies amid warmer political ties.

  Much of the credit goes to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who has rejected his predecessor’s anti-China polices and found a willing partner in the Chinese leadership. Ma has moved to dismantle many of the obstacles that for years let investment and trade flow from Taiwan to the mainland but kept China’s money out of island.

  That’s setting the stage for a degree of economic integration that seemed unimaginable when Ma took office only a year ago.

  Read also Strait Talk for Taiwan, China by Andrew Peaple.

  » Read more
  • May 22, 2009 5:40 AM

• Ma Calls on China to Remove Missiles, Vows Closer Economic Ties

  

  From Bloomberg:

  Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou vowed to prioritize economic ties with China even as he stressed the mainland must remove short-range missiles before any peace agreement can move forward.

  “There are so many financial and economic issues that haven’t been properly addressed between the two sides,” Ma said in a briefing in Taipei with foreign media to commemorate his one-year anniversary since taking office. “We should deal with those issues first because they are so closely and directly related to the well-being of our people.”

  Ma’s first year in power has been marked by improving relations with the mainland after he abandoned his predecessor’s pro-independence stance. His willingness to negotiate with China has also angered the island’s opposition, which held street protests involving tens of thousands of people objecting to his policies on May 17.

  » Read more
  • May 20, 2009 3:02 AM

• A Revolutionary Song: “In The Name Of The Father Remix”

  

  A music video created by a group of netizens called 搬运9课 has recently been widely circulated online due to its very thundering (雷人) effect. 
  

  In the video, Taiwanese pop music singer Jay Chou’s song “In The Name Of The Father 以父之名” is artistically remixed with scenes from a revolutionary model play (样板戏). A full translation of the lyrics can be found at a Jay Chou fan site.

  A similar remix of Jay Chou’s “Ninja” was also circulated earlier on the web with the same scenes. According to Danwei, the scenes are actually from the Long March Suite (长征组歌), an opera first performed in 1965.

  » Read more
  • May 18, 2009 11:30 AM

• David Miliband: China Ready to Join US as World Power

  

  From the Guardian:

  David Miliband today described China as the 21st century’s “indispensable power” with a decisive say on the future of the global economy, climate change and world trade.

  The foreign secretary predicted that over the next few decades China would become one of the two “powers that count”, along with the US, and Europe could emerge as a third only if it learned to speak with one voice.

  The remarks, in a Guardian interview, represented the most direct acknowledgement to date from a senior minister, or arguably from any western leader, of China’s ascendant position in the global pecking order.

  Miliband said a pivotal moment in China’s rise came at the G20 summit last month in London. Hu Jintao, China’s president, arrived as the head of the only major power still enjoying strong growth (expected to be 8% this year), backed by substantial financial reserves.

  “The G20 was a very significant coming of economic age in an international forum for China. If you looked around the 20 people sitting at the table … what was striking was that when China spoke everybody listened,” Miliband said.

  “China’s indispensability in part comes from size, but a second part is that it wants to play a role.”

  » Read more
  • May 18, 2009 9:12 AM

• Investment In Taiwan Urged

  

  From AP:

  China has outlined plans for encouraging mainland Chinese businesses to expand their investments in Taiwan, and has scheduled several purchasing missions to buy food and consumer products.

  Top officials in charge of Taiwan affairs outlined Beijing’s policies aimed at boosting trade and investment with the island in a forum held over the weekend in the southeastern port city of Xiamen.

  China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and while Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s policy of allowing more investment by mainland Chinese in the island has won favor with Beijing, it has sparked protests in Taiwan.

  » Read more
  • May 18, 2009 5:39 AM

• Building Bridges to China

  

  From Michael Schuman of TIME, a look at Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s approach towards Taiwan-China relations:

  Just about anywhere Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou goes these days, he ends up talking about China. On a Saturday morning in early May, Ma, casually clad in a red polo shirt and blue jeans, is marketing Taiwan as a tourist destination to foreign diplomats at a restaurant perched on a forested hillside in the county of Hualien on the island’s east coast. The government, he tells them, is upgrading bike trails in the area and hopes to get World Heritage Site status for a nearby gorge, which Ma compares to the Grand Canyon. The diplomats chat about the local hotels and scenic spots for a few moments, but then quickly shift the conversation to what is really on everyone’s mind: Taiwan’s rapidly warming relations with China.

  Ma, 58, seems only too happy to dive into the issue that has dominated his first year as Taiwan’s leader. Tourists from the Chinese mainland were allowed to visit Taiwan for the first time last year and are arriving by the thousands each day, he notes, giving the recession-hit local economy a welcome, albeit minor, boost. He stresses that he wants Taiwan to benefit economically from better ties with China — but he won’t let the island be assimilated by the rising giant. “I won’t sell out Taiwan,” Ma told TIME, adding that “I’ll sell China Taiwan fruit … We’re trying to create an atmosphere of peace.”

  Ma has already done more to close ranks with China than anyone in Taiwan’s brief history. Ever since Ma’s political party, the Kuomintang, fled mainland China to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao’s communists in 1949, relations between the two have been antagonistic at best. Beijing treats Taiwan as a runaway province and has blocked the democratic Taipei government from receiving diplomatic recognition or participating in many international forums. Both sides armed the Taiwan Strait to the teeth, turning it into one of Asia’s most dangerous military flash points. Contact between them has been grossly restricted. A year ago, Taiwan residents couldn’t take a scheduled flight or mail a letter directly to the mainland, and Taiwan-made goods had to be trans-shipped through Hong Kong and Japan.

  » Read more
  • May 14, 2009 10:56 PM

• Pentagon Worker Charged With Leaking Info to China

  

  A worker from the Defense Department has been accused of “conspiring to relay classified information to a foreign agent.” From the Associated Press:

  A criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Virginia accuses James Fondren Jr. of conspiring to relay classified information to a foreign agent.

  Authorities say Fondren was involved for years in what spy-hunters call a “false flag” operation — believing he was feeding information to one government, when in fact his handler was working for another country.

  Court papers charge that Fondren, 62, provided information to a friend named Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Taiwan who lived primarily in Louisiana.

  FBI investigators say that unbeknownst to Fondren, Kuo was taking orders from the Chinese government. Officials say Fondren believed the information was being sent to Taiwan.

  » Read more
  • May 14, 2009 3:44 PM

• Taiwan, China May Allow Cross-Trading of Stocks

  

  From Bloomberg:

  Taiwan and China are planning to permit trading of each others’ shares for the first time as ties improve 60 years after their civil war ended.

  A so-called trading platform may list as many as 30 stocks from each market, said Schive Chi, chairman of the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Now, investors are restricted from directly investing in each others’ equities. An agreement on the dual-listing of exchange-traded funds is also expected this year, he said.

  “It will be a step further,” Chi said in a May 4 interview in Taipei. “Instead of trading exchange-traded funds, it will be trading individual stocks.”

  » Read more
  • May 6, 2009 8:05 PM

• Taiwan’s Top China Negotiator Tenders Resignation

  

  From AFP:

  Taiwan’s most senior envoy dealing with China said Wednesday he had offered his resignation, in what was seen as a surprise move as relations improve following decades of tension.

  Chiang Pin-kung, who heads the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, said he had tendered his resignation to President Ma Ying-jeou because of his age — 77 — and health.

  “President Ma told me this is a critical moment and asked me to stay on… but I told the president I hope to spend more time with my family,” he said.

  He said he had first asked to resign last year but was asked to stay.

  » Read more
  • May 6, 2009 4:35 AM

• China to Let Taiwan Participate in U.N. Body

  

  Taiwan and Beijing are strengthening their economic relationship, and now China is acting more accommodating on the international stage as well. From the New York Times:

  China strongly hinted that it was prepared to let Taiwan participate in the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization. But Beijing stopped short of explicitly saying that it had accepted a Taiwanese presence at a gathering of the assembly next month.

  Mao Qunan, the spokesman for China’s Health Ministry, said in a statement that the World Health Organization had invited Taiwan to participate next month, adding that “the current arrangement reflects our overall concern and good will toward Taiwan compatriots, and this promotes the cross-straits relationship and the peaceful development of relations.”

  On his blog, John Pomfret puts this news in context:

  Actually, this is important. Basically, it means that big war between China and the United States that so many people have worried about for so long is looking less and less likely.

  Allowing Taiwan to show up for a major UN meeting qualifies as the first major concession on the part of China towards Taiwan following the election of Ma Ying-jeou as president of the island nation. In May 2008, Ma replaced the incompetent and allegedly corrupt Chen Shui-bian, who spent more time in office trying to yank out China’s nosehairs than help Taiwan.

  The WHA invitation is part of a series of deals that the two sides have worked out over th last year. They’ve increased tourism across the Taiwan Straits and added flights. (The number of flights reportedly will jump to 270 a week; that’s a huge benefit to the many Taiwanese businesses that operate in China.) China has dispatched pandas to the Taipei zoo — panda diplomacy! And then on Sunday in Nanjing (the old capital of Nationalist China) the two sides agreed to a slate of agreements that will lay the groundwork for a flood of investment in financial services to flow across the Taiwan Strait for the first time in six decades.

  But the holy grail for Taiwan (and for President Ma) so far was today’s announcement on the WHA. The reason is that by moving towards granting Taiwan observer status at a key UN agency, China is in effect (and for the first time in decades) giving Taiwan some “international space,” a little breathing room — something that President Chen had demanded but never got during his eight years in office.

  » Read more
  • April 29, 2009 9:49 AM

• China and Taiwan Deepen Economic Ties

  

  China and Taiwan have deepened economic ties which helps improve cross-strait relations. From Joy C. Shaw of the Wall Street Journal:

  “The two sides also agreed in principle to allow investment from mainland China in Taiwan.

  Representatives of Taiwan’s semiofficial Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, or ARATS, reached the agreements on Sunday in the third round of formal negotiations since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan’s president in May 2008, elected on a pledge to improve the island’s flagging economy through better relations with China.

  Taiwan insurance firms already have joint ventures in China, but banks and brokerages are allowed only representative offices on the mainland, which means they can’t conduct profitmaking business. Taiwan doesn’t permit Chinese banks any presence on the island.
  Fu Don-cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the government’s top China-policy body, told a news conference in Nanjing that Taiwan will issue guidelines to allow Chinese investment in Taiwan in one to two months. Taiwan businesses are among the largest investors in China.

  To pave the way for expanded financial flows, the longtime rivals said they will gradually build a foreign-exchange clearing system. Analysts say the lack of such a system has been a major hindrance to financial-market exchanges, such as allowing Chinese investors to buy Taiwanese shares directly.

  Although the Chinese economy seems to be coming out of a shallow recession, the Taiwanese economy is still lagging behind in its GDP growth- thus these improved financial ties are crucial to boosting both economies as well as helping China further develop and improve upon its financial sector. Despite the political tension between China and Taiwan, the economic relations between the two areas have greatly improved which in turn is crucial to stability of the region as economic ties among Asian countries have grown more complex and integrated over recent years.

  » Read more
  • April 27, 2009 9:15 AM

• The Final Triumph of Chiang Kai-shek

  

  Laura Tyson Li in the Washington Post reviews Jay Taylor’s new book The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China. The book, released by Harvard University Press, brings a new look into the life of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China and leader of the Kuomintang (KMT).

  Chiang Kai-shek ranks as one of the most despised leaders of the 20th century. Famously derided as “Peanut” and “General Cash-My-Check,” the leader of China’s Nationalist government bedeviled the Allied war effort in World War II with his lackluster defense of his country. His corrupt and brutal regime squandered billions of dollars in American aid and drove the Chinese into the arms of the communists. He died in exile a deluded despot, relegated to a footnote in modern Chinese history. Or so the conventional story goes.

  Now, however, Jay Taylor’s new biography, “The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China,” challenges the catechism on which generations of Americans have been weaned. Marshaling archival materials made newly available to researchers, including about four decades’ worth of Chiang’s daily diaries and documents from the Soviet era, it torpedoes many of that catechism’s cherished tenets. This is an important, controversial book.

  » Read more
  • April 25, 2009 9:34 PM

• Taipei Zoo Seeks Correction on Panda Prank Story

  

  From China National News:

  A furious Taipei Zoo Friday demanded that a newspaper run a correction over an April Fool’s Day prank that claimed two pandas from China were disguised forest bears.

  ‘Using their professional knowledge to write this kind of news, it is not funny at all,’ zoo spokesman Jason King said.

  His comment came after the English-language Taipei Times reported Wednesday that a zoo official recently discovered the two pandas were in fact Wenzhou brown forest bears that had been dyed to create the panda’s distinctive black and white markings.

  The story said the official became suspicious when the pandas began to spend almost all of their waking hours having sex as pandas are known for their low libidos.

  King said the zoo was flooded with phone calls from as far afield as Britain, Japan and Canada whose callers asked if the pandas were forest bears in disguise.

  » Read more
  • April 4, 2009 8:48 AM

• Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries (Updated)

  

  From The New York Times:

  A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.

  In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.

  The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

  Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

  Update: Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack from the Times Online:

  INTELLIGENCE chiefs have warned that China may have gained the capability to shut down Britain by crippling its telecoms and utilities.

  They have told ministers of their fears that equipment installed by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, in BT’s new communications network could be used to halt critical services such as power, food and water supplies.
  The warnings coincide with growing cyberwarfare attacks on Britain by foreign governments, particularly Russia and China.

  A confidential document circulating in Whitehall says that while BT has taken steps to reduce the risk of attacks by hackers or organised crime, “we believe that the mitigating measures are not effective against deliberate attack by China”.

  » Read more
  • March 28, 2009 4:17 PM

• China Turns to Buddhism to Calm Tibet, Taiwan Tensions

  

  Lucy Hornby of Reuters writes about China’s move to co-host the Second World Buddhist Forum:

  Communist China and Taiwan are for the first time jointly hosting a Buddhist forum at this lakeside city on Saturday, as Beijing turns to Buddhism as a balm for global economic turmoil and internal unrest.

  “Harmonious world”, the theme of the second World Buddhist Forum that begins in Wuxi, echoes the “harmonious society” slogans of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

  Gargantuan re-creations of Tibetan and South Asian prayer halls, built in a vast park housing a 1,000-year-old pagoda, show the resources China’s formally atheist state is prepared to invest to reclaim its Buddhist mantle.

  More background on the forum, from Xinhua:

  The Second World Buddhist Forum will open on Saturday in Wuxi City of east China’s Jiangsu Province.

  The forum, which is scheduled to be held from March 28 to April 1, is expected to bring together more than 1,200 participants from about 50 countries and regions.

  [...]The participants will take part in 17 sub-forums and will discuss topics including charity, environmental protection, culture, music and education.

  » Read more
  • March 27, 2009 9:45 PM

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