Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items tagged Taiwan

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Javier E

Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...671895

taiwan china invasion preparation history culture politics

shared by Javier E on 08 Nov 22 - No Cached
  • Taiwan is now on pace to spend more than $19 billion on defense in 2023. But China spends more than $200 billion a year
  • Instead of building large, conventional hardware (airplanes, tanks, submarines), military experts have urged Taiwan to focus on so-called asymmetric capabilities (anti-ship weapons, surface-to-air missiles, stockpiles of small arms and ammunition), which have served Ukraine well in repelling a larger invader. That, combined with a bigger force of civilian reserves, could make the cost of an invasion too high for China. This approach has earned a nickname in global defense circles: “the porcupine strategy.”
  • China now has the world’s largest navy, with more than 350 ships and submarines. Its rocket force maintains the world’s largest arsenal of land-based missiles, which would feature in any war with Taiwan.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, who was chief of Taiwan’s General Staff from 2017 to 2019, has championed the shift to asymmetric capabilities and has emerged as a Cassandra-like figure in his warnings that Taiwan is not preparing fast enough
  • You may not be able to stop an invasion, Lee says, but you can stop China from subjugating Taiwan. This entails denying China the ability to control the battle space. The Chinese haven’t fought a war in several decades, and Taiwan has geographic advantages—including ample mountains and few beaches suitable for amphibious operations
  • the first three section headings: “I. Taiwan Is Part of China—This Is an Indisputable Fact,” “II. Resolute Efforts of the CPC to Realize China’s Complete Reunification,” and “III. 2fChina’s Complete Reunification Is a Process That Cannot Be Halted.”
  • Lee points to two possible scenarios. The first is a coercive approach in which China encircles and pressures Taiwan—perhaps even seizing outlying islands and engaging in missile strikes. The second is a full-scale invasion.
  • Politically, Lee said, the message from China to the U.S. and Taiwan is simple: “I can do whatever I want in Taiwan, and there’s nothing the U.S. can do about it.” This message came across unequivocally in a white paper that Beijing released in August.
  • Anti-ship missiles, anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, drones, long-range artillery, and small arms could wreak havoc on an invading force, and disrupt the supply chains necessary to sustain an occupation.
  • Lee also argues that Taiwan’s civilian population should be organized into a trained Territorial Defense Force, so that any attempted occupation would be met by the broadest possible resistance. “As long as China fails, Taiwan wins the war,”
  • “The purpose is to make China believe that if you want to invade Taiwan, you will suffer huge losses,” Lee said. “And if you still invade Taiwan, you will not be able to succeed.
  • as Lee sees it, the pace must quicken. “Taiwan needs a strategic paradigm shift,”
  • When Chiang fled to Taiwan—with roughly 2 million Chinese from the mainland—there were some 6 million people already living on an island that was just emerging from 50 years of Japanese rule. Most of the people living on the island when Chiang arrived could claim roots in Taiwan going back hundreds of years. They had their own languages and culture. So too did the island’s many Indigenous groups, such as the Amis, the Atayal, and the Paiwan.
  • To subjugate the island, Chiang killed and imprisoned tens of thousands over decades—a period known as the White Terror. He set up a military dictatorship under the leadership of his Chinese nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) and, from this offshore platform, vowed to reclaim mainland China.
  • After the election of President Ma Ying-jeou, in 2008, links of trade, investment, and travel helped reduce tensions with China. Ma was from the KMT, and the party’s Chinese heritage and its ties to Taiwan’s business elite eased the way to détente with Beijing.
  • But many Taiwanese, particularly the young, feared that forging too close a connection could ultimately give Beijing leverage over Taiwan. In 2014, in what became known as “the Sunflower Movement,” named for the flower that served as a symbol of hope, students occupied the Taiwan legislature to oppose a free-trade agreement with China. After a tense standoff, they succeeded in stopping the deal.
  • tus quo is really interesting, because in the American context that is what it mean
  • But the idea of it here is: There is no need to declare independence, because we are already independent. This country functions like an independent nation, but someone else says it is not.” Recent polling suggests that fewer than 5 percent of people in Taiwan identify as “only Chinese.”
  • n Chinese and KMT officials 30 years ago, an outcome
  • at represents anything but consensus. To the Chinese Communist Party, the consensus is that there is one China, and the government in Beijing is the sole legitimate authority. To the KMT, the consensus is that there is one China, but the Republic of China in Taiwan is the legitimate government. To the DPP, there is no consensus, only a fraught political reality to be managed
  • China proposes a “one country, two systems” regime, in which Taiwan becomes a formal part of China but maintains an autonomous political system. There is one big problem with this proposal: Hong Kong
  • in 2020, several “national-security laws” were passed giving the authorities broad powers to crush dissent. Activists were rounded up. Independent media were shut down. One country, two systems was dead. The fate of Hong Kong has had a profound impact on Taiwan.
  • Ukraine inspired the Taiwanese society a lot, including how Zelensky told their story,” Chiang said. He was almost matter-of-fact when he told me, “I would say war between China and Taiwan will definitely happen. We want to win.”
  • In our conversation, Tsai talked about what she had learned from Ukraine. One lesson is simply the need for international support—to defend itself or, better, to avoid a war in the first place
  • Another lesson of Ukraine is the importance of national character. Outside support, Tsai emphasized, depends on qualities only Taiwan can provide. “You need to have good leadership,” she said, “but more important is the people’s determination to defend themselves, and the Ukrainian people showed that.
  • Hanging over all of this is the role of the United States. As one Taiwanese ex
  • ert pointedly asked me: “We can make ourselves a porcupine, but what are you going to do?”
  • Would the U.S. risk the biggest naval battle since World War II to break a Chinese blockade? Would the U.S. attack an invading Chinese force knowing that U.S. military personnel in Japan, Guam, and possibly Hawaii are within range of Chinese rockets? Would the American people really support a war with the world’s most populous country in order to defend Taiwan?
  • how the U.S. can help prepare Taiwan than on what the U.S. would do in a conflict.
  • small victories only point up the scale of the challenge. Wu himself has used the term cognitive warfare to describe the comprehensive nature of China’s pressure on Taiwan. “They use missiles, air, ships, disinformation, cyberattacks, and economic coercion,” he told me. As a warning sign, China has banned hundreds of exported products from Taiwan. “They claimed that our mangoes tested positive for COVID,”
  • . If China takes Taiwan, Wu suggested that the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions could extend to the East China Sea, threatening Japan; to the South China Sea, where China has built militarized islands and claims an entire body of water bordering several nations; to the Indian Ocean, where China is expanding influence and could establish military bases; and to the Pacific Ocean, where China is working to establish security pacts with island nations
  • I sat there reading message after message, all posted in closed chat rooms, meant to bend Taiwanese minds to Beijing’s worldview. The meanings of buzzwords like cognitive warfare and resilience came into sharper focus. Facing the seemingly bottomless resources of a massive totalitarian state, here were two young people working for free on a Wednesday night, quietly insisting on the notion that there is indeed such a thing as objective reality.
  • to preserve this, Taiwan has to find some mix of the approaches that I’d heard about: preparing for a war while avoiding it; talking to China without being coerced by it; drawing closer to the U.S. without being reduced to a chess piece on the board of a great game; tending to a young democracy without letting divisions weaken it; asserting a unique identity without becoming an independent country.
Javier E

Opinion | Biden's Taiwan Policy Is Truly, Deeply Reckless - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...biden-taiwan-china.html

taiwan china biden history

shared by Javier E on 05 May 21 - No Cached
  • Media coverage of President Biden’s foreign policy tends to focus on his efforts to withdraw from Afghanistan, get tough on Russia and negotiate with Iran. But none of those may prove as consequential as Mr. Biden’s quiet, incremental, moves to establish official relations with Taiwan. Because only his policy toward Taiwan is meaningfully increasing the risk of world war.
  • He’s doing so by undoing a diplomatic fiction that for more than 40 years has served the United States, Taiwan and the world exceptionally well.
  • By keeping U.S. relations with Taiwan unofficial, the “one China” fiction helped Beijing imagine that peaceful reunification remained possible. Which gave it an excuse not to invade.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Like the Trump administration before it, the Biden team is now progressively chipping away at this bargain. Last summer, Democrats removed the phrase “one China” from their platform. In January, Mr. Biden became the first American president since 1978 to host Taiwan’s envoy at his inauguration. In April, his administration announced it was easing decades-old limitations on official U.S. contacts with the Taiwanese government.
  • These policies are increasing the odds of a catastrophic war. The more the United States and Taiwan formally close the door on reunification, the more likely Beijing is to seek reunification by force.
  • As the Harvard political scientist Graham Allison has observed, “No Chinese national security official I have ever met, and no U.S. official who has examined the situation, doubts that China would choose war over losing territory it considers vital to its national interest.”
  • whether or not the United States officially pledges to come to Taiwan’s defense, it is deeply reckless to believe that it can both provoke Beijing by undoing the “one China” compact and deter it with the threat of military force.
  • It’s reckless because deterrence requires power and will, and when it comes to Taiwan, the United States is deficient in both. According to Fareed Zakaria, “The Pentagon has reportedly enacted 18 war games against China over Taiwan, and China has prevailed in every one.”
  • One reason is geography. Taiwan is roughly 100 miles from mainland China but 5,000 miles from Honolulu. Within 500 miles of the island, mainland China boasts 39 air bases. The United States possesses two
  • In the opening phase of a war over Taiwan, “the command and control networks that manage the critical flow of information to U.S. forces in combat would be broken apart and shattered by electronic attacks,”
  • American bases in Japan and Guam would be “inundated with waves of precise ballistic and cruise missiles” while U.S. aircraft carriers would be highly vulnerable to China’s “carrier-killers.”
  • U.S. casualties “could be staggering.”
  • There’s another reason deterrence alone won’t work: China cares more. In 2017, mainland Chinese said that Taiwan topped their list of “concerns about the U.S.-China relationship.” Among Americans, by contrast, Taiwan didn’t make the top seven.
  • while foreign policy elites in Washington overwhelmingly endorse going to war for Taiwan, ordinary Americans are deeply skeptical
  • while 85 percent of Republican leaders support sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack, only 43 percent of Republicans among the public agree
  • I suspect that figure would be even lower if respondents knew that some of America’s most experienced China experts — including former ambassador to Beijing J. Stapleton Roy and Chas Freeman, who served as Richard Nixon’s interpreter on his 1972 trip to China — believe such a conflict would risk nuclear war.
  • Recognizing the limits of America’s ability to deter Beijing does not mean abandoning Taiwan
  • smaller countries that sit in the shadow of superpowers often accept limitations on their external behavior. The United States would never allow Mexico to join a military alliance with Beijing.
  • What’s crucial is that the Taiwanese people preserve their individual freedom and the planet does not endure a third world war. The best way for the United States to pursue those goals is by maintaining America’s military support for Taiwan while also maintaining the “one China” framework that for more than four decades has helped keep the peace in one of the most dangerous places on earth.
g-dragon

Is Taiwan Considered a Country? - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/is-taiwan-a-country-1435437

taiwan country china history

shared by g-dragon on 30 May 18 - No Cached
  • There are eight accepted criteria used to determine whether a place is an independent country (also known as a State with a capital "s") or not.
  • Taiwan is home to almost 23 million people, making it the 48th largest "country" in the world, with a population slightly smaller than North Korea but larger than Romania.
  • Taiwan is an economic powerhouse - it's one of the four economic tigers of Southeast Asia. Its GDP per capita is among the top 30 of the world. Taiwan has its own currency, the new Taiwan dollar.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Education is compulsory and Taiwan has more than 150 institutions of higher learning.
  • Taiwan has an extensive internal and external transportation network that consists of roads, highways, pipelines, railroads, airports, and seaports. Taiwan can ship goods, there's no question about that!
  • Taiwan's main threat is from mainland China, which has approved an anti-secession law that allows a military attack on Taiwan to prevent the island from seeking independence. Additionally, the United States sells Taiwan military equipment and may defend Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act.
  • While Taiwan has maintained its own control over the island from Taipei since 1949, China still claims to have control over Taiwan.
  • Somewhat. Since China claims Taiwan as its province, the international community does not want to contradict China on this matter
  • Therefore, Taiwan only meets five of the eight criteria fully. Another three criteria are met in some respects due to mainland China's stance on the issue.
Megan Flanagan

Taiwan elects first female president; China ties strain - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by Megan Flanagan on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • aiwan has elected its first female president in a landmark election that could unsettle relations with Beijing.
  • <img alt="Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen casts her ballot." class="media__image" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160116153820-taiwan-election-6-large-169.jpg">Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen casts her ballot.The election also marked the first time the KMT has lost control of the island's legislature. The DPP took 68 of the 113 seats in Taiwan's parliament compared to the KMT's 35.
  • That could anger Beijing, which views Taiwan as an integral part of its territory that is to be taken by force if necessary. Beijing has missiles pointed at the island
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The KMT forged closer ties with China under President Ma Ying-jeou. The new president will take over from Ma, who will step down on May 20 after serving two four-year terms. China and Taiwan -- officially the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China -- separated in 1949 following the Communist victory on the mainland in the civil war.
  • From Taiwan, she is part of the South Korean pop act Twice. She appears in the video reading her apology off a sheet of paper, leading many to speculate that her Korean management company JYP Entertainment had coerced her to appease mainland Chinese fans, who represent a lucrative market
  • In particular, a younger generation fears a future under the influence of Beijing and doesn't want Taiwan to become another Chinese territory.
  • "Taiwanese people are very peaceful. We want a peaceful relationship with mainland China, but that shouldn't mean we have to sacrifice our way of life and our democracy," said Huang Kuo-chang, leader of the New Power Party, one of a number of smaller opposition parties.
  • Taiwan has elected its first female president
  • Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the presidency with 56.1% of the vote,
Javier E

Taiwan Is Beating the Coronavirus. Can the US Do the Same? | WIRED - 0 views

www.wired.com/...navirus-can-the-us-do-the-same

taiwan pandemic response strategies

shared by Javier E on 04 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • it is natural enough to look at Taiwan’s example and wonder why we didn’t do what they did, or, more pertinently, could we have done what they did?
  • we keep seeing the culturally embedded assumption that East Asian-style state social control just won’t fly in the good old, individualist, government-wary, freedom-loving United States.
  • The New York Times: People in “places like Singapore … are more willing to accept government orders.” Fortune: “There seems to be more of a willingness to place the community and society needs over individual liberty.” Even WIRED: “These countries all have social structures and traditions that might make this kind of surveillance and control a little easier than in the don’t-tread-on-me United States.”
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • we see the classic “Confucian values” (or “Asian values”) argument that has historically been deployed to explain everything from the economic success of East Asian nations to the prevalence of authoritarian single-party rule in Asia, and even, most recently, China’s supposed edge in AI research.
  • So, yeah, kudos to Taiwan for keeping its people safe, but here in America we’re going to do what we always do in a crisis—line up at a gun store and accuse the opposing political party of acting in bad faith. Not for us, those Asian values.
  • But the truth is that Taiwan, one of Asia’s most vibrant and boisterous democracies, is a terrible example to cite as a cultural other populated by submissive peons
  • Taiwan’s self-confidence and collective solidarity trace back to its triumphal self-liberation from its own authoritarian past, its ability to thrive in the shadow of a massive, hostile neighbor that refuses to recognize its right to chart its own path, and its track record of learning from existential threats.
  • There is no doubt that in January it would have been difficult for the US to duplicate Taiwan’s containment strategy, but that’s not because Americans are inherently more ornery than Taiwanese
  • It’s because the United States has a miserable record when it comes to learning from its own mistakes and suffers from a debilitating lack of faith in the notion that the government can solve problems—something that dates at least as far back as the moment in 1986 when Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
  • The Taiwan-US comparison is the opposite of a clash of civilizations; instead, it’s a deathly showdown between competence and incompetence.
  • To be fair, there are some cultural aspects of East Asian societies that may work in Taiwan’s favor
  • There is undeniably a long tradition in East Asia of elevating scholars and experts to the highest levels of government,
  • The country’s president Tsai Ingwen, boasts a PhD from the London School of Economics, and the vice president, Chen Chien-jen, is a highly regarded epidemiologist
  • The threat of SARS put Taiwan on high alert for future outbreaks, while the past record of success at meeting such challenges seems to have encouraged the public to accept socially intrusive technological interventions.
  • First, and most important was Taiwan’s experience battling the SARS outbreak in 2003, followed by the swine flu in 2009
  • “Taiwan actually has a functioning democratic government, run by sensible, well-educated people—the USA? Not so much.”)
  • Taiwan’s commitment to transparency has also been critical
  • In the United States, the Trump administration ordered federal health authorities to treat high-level discussions on the coronavirus as classified material.
  • In Taiwan, the government has gone to great lengths to keep citizens well informed on every aspect of the outbreak, including daily press conferences and an active presence on social media
  • “Do not forget that Taiwan has been under China’s threat constantly,” wrote Wang Cheng-hua, a professor of art history at Princeton, “which has raised social consciousness about collective action. When the collective will supports government, then all of the strict measures implemented by the government make sense.”
  • Over the past quarter-century, Taiwan’s government has nurtured public trust by its actions and its transparency.
  • The democracy activists who risked their lives and careers during the island nation’s martial law era were not renowned for their willingness to accept government orders or preach Confucian social harmony
  • some of the current willingness to trust what the government is telling the people is the direct “result of having experienced the transition from an authoritarian government that lied all the time, to a democratic government and robust political dialogue that forced people to be able to evaluate information.”
  • Because of the opposition of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations or the World Health Organization
  • “The reality of being isolated from global organizations,” wrote Tung, “also makes Taiwanese very aware of the publicity of its success in handling a crisis like this. The more coverage from foreign media, the more people feel confident in government policy and social mobilization.”
  • Given what we know about Taiwan’s hard-won historical experience, could the US have implemented a similar model?
  • The answer, sadly, seems to be no
  • it would be impossible for the US to successfully integrate a health care database with customs and travel records because there is no national health care database in the United States. “The US health care system is fragmented, making it difficult to organize, integrate, and assess data coming in from its various government and private-sector parts,”
  • more tellingly, continued Fidler, “the manner in which the United States has responded to Covid-19 demonstrates that the United States did not learn the lessons from past outbreaks and is struggling to cobble together a semblance of a strategy. ”
  • There’s where the contrast between the United States and Taiwan becomes most salient. The US is not only bad at the act of government but has actively been getting worse.
  • But Taiwan’s own success at building a functional democracy is probably the most potent rebuke to the Asian values thesis.
  • But over that same period, powerful political and economic interests in the US have dedicated themselves to undermining faith in government action, in favor of deregulated markets that have no capacity to react intelligently or proactively to existential threats.
  • And instead of learning from history, US leaders actively ignore it, a truth for which there could be no better symbolic proof than the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Security Council pandemic office created by the Obama administration in the wake of the Ebola outbreak
  • Finally, instead of seeking to keep the public informed to the best of our ability, some of our political leaders and media institutions have gone out of their way to muddy the waters.
  • In Taiwan, one early government response to the Covid-19 outbreak was to institute a fine of $100,000 for the act of spreading fake news about the epidemic.
  • In the US the most popular television news network in the country routinely downplayed or misrepresented the threat of the coronavirus, until the severity of the outbreak became too large to ignore.
  • If there is any silver lining here, it’s that the disaster now upon us is of such immense scope that it could finally expose the folly of the structural forces that have been wreaking sustained havoc on American governmental institutions
  • So maybe we are finally about to learn that competence matters, that educated leaders are a virtue, and that telling the truth is a responsibility
  • Americans might have to learn this the hard way, like we did in Hong Kong and Singapore.”
  • We’re about to find out how hard it’s going to be. But will we learn?
mimiterranova

Opinion: Don't Help China By Hyping Risk Of War Over Taiwan : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...hyping-risk-of-war-over-taiwan

opinion china war taiwan politics

shared by mimiterranova on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • China's actions no doubt have earned scrutiny. In recent years, Beijing has grown impatiently aggressive in pursuit of its ambitions. China has drawn blood along the contested Indian border, threatened Vietnam, expanded its military presence in the South China Sea, increased the tempo of its operations near the Senkaku Islands and trampled Hong Kong's autonomy — to say nothing of the atrocities it is perpetrating against its own citizens in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
  • As troubling as the trend-lines of Chinese behavior are, it would be a mistake to infer that they represent a prelude to an unalterable catastrophe. China's top priority now and in the foreseeable future is to deter Taiwan independence rather than compel unification. Beijing remains confident in its capacity to achieve this near-term objective, even as it sets the groundwork for its long-term goal of unification. Indeed, based on polling on attitudes regarding defense, we believe the people of Taiwan already are sober to the risks of pursuing independence.
  • Every Chinese leader since Mao Zedong has projected determination to unify Taiwan with the mainland. Xi is no different. And Xi, now 67, will not likely be around to see if Taiwan is unified with the mainland by the putative deadline, the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 2049.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Beijing has its own incentives to avoid war. Foremost among them is that any attempt to take Taiwan by force would very likely invite a military conflict with the United States. Such a conflict would be difficult to limit from escalating or spreading beyond the Taiwan Strait.
  • China has targeted Taiwan economically, sought to induce a brain drain of Taiwan's top engineers to the mainland, isolated Taiwan on the world stage, fomented social divisions inside Taiwan, launched cyberattacks and undertaken displays of military force.
  • Beijing's goal is to constantly remind Taiwan's people of its growing power, induce pessimism about Taiwan's future, deepen splits within the island's political system and show that outside powers are impotent to counter its flexes.
  • If American policy makers want to help Taiwan, they will need to go beyond focusing on the military threat.
  • Some of the work necessarily will be security-focused, but that is the start, not the end, of what needs to be done. Beijing will object, of course. But a focus on economic and diplomatic initiatives lies well within the United States' one-China policy, as successive administrations have defined it.
Javier E

Opinion | Pound for Pound, Taiwan Is the Most Important Place in the World - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...taiwan-computer-chips.html

taiwan world economic industrial chip manufacturing china us foreign policy

shared by Javier E on 14 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • The new Cold War, between the United States and China, is increasingly focused on access to just one industry in one place: computer chips made in Taiwan.
  • Over the past year, Taiwan has taken a lead in the race to build thinner, faster and more powerful chips, or semiconductors. Its fastest chips are the critical building blocks of rapidly evolving digital industries like artificial intelligence and high-speed computing.
  • As of now, any country looking to dominate the digital future has to buy these superfast, ultrathin chips from either Taiwan or South Korea. And Taiwan has the edge in both technology and market power.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • It is a small island of just 24 million people, but it is at the center of the battle for global technological supremacy. Pound for pound, it is the most important place in the world. As the Cold War between China and the United States intensifies, that importance will only continue to grow.
  • After World War II, only two major emerging economies managed to grow faster than 5 percent for five decades in a row and to rise from poverty into the ranks of developed economies. One was Taiwan, the other South Korea
  • They kept advancing up the industrial ladder by investing more heavily in research and development than did any of their rivals among emerging economies. Now they are among the research leaders of the developed economic world as well.
  • How did they accomplish this feat? Competent governments played a major role. South Korea nurtured giant conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai, which exported consumer products under their own brand names. Taiwan cultivated smaller companies focused on making parts or assembling finished products for foreign brands
  • Today the flexibility goes a long way toward explaining its success.
  • Mixing overseas experience with young local graduates, the science parks became hothouses for entrepreneurial start-ups.
  • Going forward, many tech analysts predict that Taiwan’s business model gives it a clear edge. Most customers prefer a pure foundry that does not compete with them to design chips or build devices, and only Taiwan offers this service.
  • That is a big reason Apple has been switching from Samsung to T.S.M.C. for the processing chips in the iPhone and why Intel is expected to outsource production of its most advanced chips mainly to T.S.M.C.
  • Taiwan has tried to position itself as the “Switzerland” of chips, a neutral supplier, but it increasingly finds itself at the center of the jousting between China and the United States
  • Historically, the importance of Taiwan was calculated in geopolitical terms. A small democracy thriving in the shadow of a Communist giant stirred sympathy and support in Washington. Now, as a byproduct of its successful economic model, Taiwan has become a critical link in the global tech supply chain, adding economic weight to the geopolitical calculations.
Javier E

He Turned 55. Then He Started the World's Most Important Company. - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...hips-entrepreneurship-506fcbc4

entrepreneur chip company Taiwan

shared by Javier E on 10 Apr 24 - No Cached
  • You probably use a device with a chip made by TSMC every day, but TSMC does not actually design or market those chips. That would have sounded completely absurd before the existence of TSMC. Back then, companies designed chips that they manufactured themselves. Chang’s radical idea for a great semiconductor company was one that would exclusively manufacture chips that its customers designed. By not designing or selling its own chips, TSMC never competed with its own clients. In exchange, they wouldn’t have to bother running their own fabrication plants, or fabs, the expensive and dizzyingly sophisticated facilities where circuits are carved on silicon wafers.
  • The innovative business model behind his chip foundry would transform the industry and make TSMC indispensable to the global economy. Now it’s the company that Americans rely on the most but know the least about
  • I wanted to know more about his decision to start a new company when he could have stopped working altogether. What I discovered was that his age was one of his assets. Only someone with his experience and expertise could have possibly executed his plan for TSMC. 
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • “I could not have done it sooner,” he says. “I don’t think anybody could have done it sooner. Because I was the first one.” 
  • By the late 1960s, he was managing TI’s integrated-circuit division. Before long, he was running the entire semiconductor group. 
  • He transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering, earned his master’s degree and would have stayed for his Ph.D. if he hadn’t failed the qualifying exam. Instead, he got his first job in semiconductors and moved to Texas Instruments in 1958
  • he came along as the integrated circuit was being invented, and his timing couldn’t have been any better, as Chang belonged to the first generation of semiconductor geeks. He developed a reputation as a tenacious manager who could wring every possible improvement out of production lines, which put his career on the fast track.
  • Chang grew up dreaming of being a writer—a novelist, maybe a journalist—and he planned to major in English literature at Harvard University. But after his freshman year, he decided that what he actually wanted was a good job
  • “They talk about life-work balance,” he says. “That’s a term I didn’t even know when I was their age. Work-life balance. When I was their age, if there was no work, there was no life.” 
  • These days, TSMC is investing $40 billion to build plants in Arizona, but the project has been stymied by delays, setbacks and labor shortages, and Chang told me that some of TSMC’s young employees in the U.S. have attitudes toward work that he struggles to understand. 
  • Chang says he wouldn’t have taken the risk of moving to Taiwan if he weren’t financially secure. In fact, he didn’t take that same risk the first time he could have.
  • “The closer the industry match,” they wrote, “the greater the success rate.” 
  • By then, Chang knew that he wasn’t long for Texas Instruments. But his stock options hadn’t vested, so he turned down the invitation to Taiwan. “I was not financially secure yet,” he says. “I was never after great wealth. I was only after financial security.” For this corporate executive in the middle of the 1980s, financial security equated to $200,000 a year. “After tax, of course,” he says. 
  • Chang’s situation had changed by the time Li called again three years later. He’d exercised a few million dollars of stock options and bought tax-exempt municipal bonds that paid enough for him to be financially secure by his living standards. Once he’d achieved that goal, he was ready to pursue another one. 
  • “There was no certainty at all that Taiwan would give me the chance to build a great semiconductor company, but the possibility existed, and it was the only possibility for me,” Chang says. “That’s why I went to Taiwan.” 
  • Not long ago, a team of economists investigated whether older entrepreneurs are more successful than younger ones. By scrutinizing Census Bureau records and freshly available Internal Revenue Service data, they were able to identify 2.7 million founders in the U.S. who started companies between 2007 and 2014. Then they looked at their ages.
  • The average age of those entrepreneurs at the founding of their companies was 41.9. For the fastest-growing companies, that number was 45. The economists also determined that 50-year-old founders were almost twice as likely to achieve major success as 30-year-old founders, while the founders with the lowest chance of success were the ones in their early 20s
  • “Successful entrepreneurs are middle-aged, not young,” they wrote in their 2020 paper.  
  • Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists throw money at talented young entrepreneurs in the hopes they will start the next trillion-dollar company. They have plentiful energy, insatiable ambition and the vision to peek around corners and see the future. What they don’t typically have are mortgages, family obligations and other adult responsibilities to distract them or diminish their appetite for risk. Chang himself says that younger people are more innovative when it comes to science and technical subjects. 
  • But in business, older is better. Entrepreneurs in their 40s and 50s may not have the exuberance to believe they will change the world, but they have the experience to know how they actually can. Some need years of specialized training before they can start a company. In biotechnology, for example, founders are more likely to be college professors than college dropouts. Others require the lessons and connections they accumulate over the course of their careers. 
  • one more finding from their study of U.S. companies that helps explain the success of a chip maker in Taiwan. It was that prior employment in the area of their startups—both the general sector and specific industry—predicted “a vastly higher probability” of success.
  • Chang was such a workaholic that he made sales calls on his honeymoon and had no patience for those who didn’t share his drive
  • Morris Chang had 30 years of experience in his industry when he decided to uproot his life and move to another continent. He knew more about semiconductors than just about anyone on earth—and certainly more than anyone in Taiwan. As soon as he started his job at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Chang was summoned to K.T. Li’s office and given a second job. “He felt I should start a semiconductor company in Taiwan,”
  • “I decided right away that this could not be the kind of great company that I wanted to build at either Texas Instruments or General Instrument,”
  • TI handled every part of chip production, but what worked in Texas would not translate to Taiwan. The only way that he could build a great company in his new home was to make a new sort of company altogether, one with a business model that would exploit the country’s strengths and mitigate its many weaknesses.
  • Chang determined that Taiwan had precisely one strength in the chip supply chain. The research firm that he was now running had been experimenting with semiconductors for the previous 10 years. When he studied that decade of data, Chang was pleasantly surprised by Taiwan’s yields, the percentage of working chips on silicon wafers. They were almost twice as high in Taiwan as they were in the U.S., he said. 
  • “People were ingrained in thinking the secret sauce of a successful semiconductor company was in the wafer fab,” Campbell told me. “The transition to the fabless semiconductor model was actually pretty obvious when you thought about it. But it was so against the prevailing wisdom that many people didn’t think about it.” 
  • Taiwan’s government took a 48% stake, with the rest of the funding coming from the Dutch electronics giant Philips and Taiwan’s private sector, but Chang was the driving force behind the company. The insight to build TSMC around such an unconventional business model was born from his experience, contacts and expertise. He understood his industry deeply enough to disrupt it. 
  • “TSMC was a business-model innovation,” Chang says. “For innovations of that kind, I think people of a more advanced age are perhaps even more capable than people of a younger age.”
  • the personal philosophy that he’d developed over the course of his long career. “To be a partner to our customers,” he says. That founding principle from 1987 is the bedrock of the foundry business to this day, as TSMC says the key to its success has always been enabling the success of its customers.  
  • TSMC manufactures chips in iPhones, iPads and Mac computers for Apple, which manufactures a quarter of TSMC’s net revenue. Nvidia is often called a chip maker, which is curious, because it doesn’t make chips. TSMC does. 
  • Churning out identical copies of a single chip for an iPhone requires one TSMC fab to produce more than a quintillion transistors—that is, one million trillions—every few months. In a year, the entire semiconductor industry produces “more transistors than the combined quantity of all goods produced by all other companies, in all other industries, in all human history,” Miller writes. 
  • I asked how he thought about success when he moved to Taiwan. “The highest degree of success in 1985, according to me, was to build a great company. A lower degree of success was at least to do something that I liked to do and I wanted to do,” he says. “I happened to achieve the highest degree of success that I had in mind.” 
lucieperloff

China's Rising Menace Hardens Taiwan's Separate Identity - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...taiwan-china-identity.html

international culture politics

shared by lucieperloff on 20 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • China may be the land of her ancestors, but Taiwan is where she was born and raised, a home she defines as much by its verdant mountains and bustling night markets as by its robust democracy.
  • Beijing’s strident authoritarianism — and its claim over Taiwan — has only solidified the island’s identity, now central to a dispute that has turned the Taiwan Strait into one of Asia’s biggest potential flash points.
  • Most of Taiwan’s residents are not interested in becoming absorbed by a Communist-ruled China. But they are not pushing for formal independence for the island, either, preferring to avoid the risk of war.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The island’s first residents had arrived thousands of years ago and were more closely related to the peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific than to the Chinese. Europeans had set up trading posts on the island. The Japanese had ruled over it for 50 years.
  • The United States and other countries would later follow suit, dealing a blow to mainlanders like Ms. Wang. How could she still claim to be Chinese, she wondered, if the world did not even recognize her as such?
  • Under Mr. Xi, Beijing has signaled its impatience with Taiwan in increasingly menacing ways, sending military jets to buzz Taiwan on a near-daily basis.
  • The global criticism of China for its handling of Covid and its repression at home rekindled a longstanding debate in Taiwan about dropping “China” from the island’s official name. No action was taken, though; such a move by Taiwan would have been seen by Beijing as formalizing its de facto independence.
  • After the Nationalists ended nearly four decades of martial law in 1987, topics previously deemed taboo, including questions of identity and calls for independence, could be discussed.
  • Now, as China under Mr. Xi has become more authoritarian, the political gulf that separates it from Taiwan has only seemed increasingly insurmountable.
edencottone

U.S. warns of China's growing threat to Taiwan - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...a-growing-threat-taiwan-476170

Politics us

shared by edencottone on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • TOKYO — When President Joe Biden’s national security team prepares to meet their Chinese counterparts at a high-stakes summit in Alaska on Thursday, one of the most urgent issues they must tackle is Beijing’s growing threat to Taipei.
  • It’s a timeline they say has been accelerated by the Trump administration’s repeated provocation of Beijing, China’s rapid military build-up, and recent indications that Taiwan could unilaterally declare its independence from the mainland.
  • Such an invasion would be an explosive event that could throw the whole region into chaos and potentially culminate in a shooting war between China and the United States, which according to the Taiwan Relations Act would consider a Chinese invasion a “grave concern” and is widely understood as a commitment to help Taiwan defend itself against Beijing.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “If we interject ourselves, we are the reagent catalyst that will make this problem hotter,” said one senior defense official, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive operational planning. “Militarily we know that if we do too much, push too hard, China will use that optic and they will do more against Taiwan.”
  • Washington and Taipei have robust economic ties but do not have formal diplomatic relations. The Trump administration sought to strengthen this relationship with controversial arms sales and senior-level visits. Officially, the United States has a “One China” policy that recognizes China and Taiwan's historic connection but has consistently opposed the coerced resolution of the status of the island.
  • “Preparing for Taiwan contingencies has been a focus in China’s military modernization for some time, so as their capabilities are increasing, obviously, we are paying very careful attention to the military balance in the Taiwan Strait,” David Helvey, the acting assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told reporters traveling with Austin to Japan.
  • Despite a global pandemic, in 2020 China commissioned 25 advanced new ships, including cruisers, destroyers and ballistic missile submarines — capabilities designed to keep America and its allies that might interfere on Taiwan’s behalf at bay, a second senior defense official said. Meanwhile, Beijing is integrating its new equipment into an increasingly sophisticated force, demonstrated in a loudly publicized live-fire event last fall in which Chinese forces took out an “enemy” with ballistic missiles, and developing a theater command structure much like that of the U.S. military.
  • Meanwhile, officials are increasingly concerned that Taipei may force Beijing into action by unilaterally declaring its independence, particularly after Taiwan’s president was reelected in a landslide last year. Polling data consistently shows the Taiwanese people want a separate identity that is not Chinese, the second official said.
  • The Trump administration exacerbated the Taiwan problem, the second official said. Trump sought to use Taipei as a cudgel against Beijing during the tariff-driven trade war he launched against China, increasing the number of senior-level visits and publicizing arms sales and an anti-China military strategy.
  • Sayers urged the new administration to increase investment in its forward-based forces in the Pacific, strengthen ties with Japan and Australia to deter Beijing, and take steps to bolster Taiwan’s defenses.
  • “If we were to all of a sudden militarize the engagement, if we were to do a lot more to push back on China, if [Taiwan’s] government declares independence — those are all bellwether events that could significantly alter the facts or the assumptions that we have about a military crisis,” said the first senior defense official.
anonymous

China says tailed U.S. warship in Taiwan Strait | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...in-taiwan-strait-idUSKBN28T0GX

china taiwan usmilitary

shared by anonymous on 19 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • China’s military tailed a U.S. warship as it passed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Saturday
  • China
  • claims democratically-run Taiwan as its own territory,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The U.S. Navy said the guided missile destroyer USS Mustin had conducted “a routine Taiwan Strait transit (on) Dec. 19 in accordance with international law”.
  • its air and naval forces “tailed and monitored” the vessel throughout.
  • deliberately raise the temperature of the Taiwan issue, as they fear calm in the Taiwan Strait, and send flirtatious glances to Taiwan independence forces, seriously jeopardising peace and stability in the strait
  • Beijing believes Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is bent on a formal declaration of independence for the island
carolinehayter

Taiwan Covid: How they went 200 days without a locally transmitted case - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US trump pandemic

shared by carolinehayter on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • As much of the world struggles to contain new waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan just marked its 200th consecutive day without a locally transmitted case of the disease.
  • Taipei's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the world's most effective. The island of 23 million people last reported a locally transmitted case on April 12, which was Easter Sunday. As of Thursday, it had confirmed 553 cases -- only 55 of which were local transmissions. Seven deaths have been recorded.
  • Easter was an important milestone in the United States because President Donald Trump had said a month earlier he wanted the country "opened up and just raring to go" by the holiday.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • On Friday, those figures had passed 45 million cases and more than 1.1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
  • Taiwan's landmark achievement comes in a week when France and Germany are enacting new lockdowns and the United States identified a record 88,000-plus cases in a day. The state of Florida, which has a similar population size to Taiwan, with approximately 21 million people, identified 4,188 cases on Wednesday alone.
  • Taiwan's response focused on speed. Taiwanese authorities began screening passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, on December 31, 2019 -- back when the virus was mostly the subject of rumors and limited reporting.
  • Taiwan confirmed its first reported case of the novel coronavirus on January 21 and then banned Wuhan residents from traveling to the island. All passengers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao were required to undergo screening.
  • All this happened before Wuhan itself went into lockdown on January 23.
  • By March, Taiwan banned all foreign nationals from entering the island, apart from diplomats, residents and those with special entry visas.
  • One is geography -- Taiwan is an island, so it's easier for officials to control entry and exit through its borders.
  • Taiwan also had experience on its side. After suffering through the deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, Taiwan worked to build up its capacity to deal with a pandemic
  • Authorities activated the island's Central Epidemic Command Center, which was set up in the wake of SARS, to coordinate between different ministries. The government also ramped up face mask and protective equipment production to make sure there would be a steady supply of PPE.
  • The government also invested in mass testing and quick and effective contact tracing.
  • "Very careful contact tracing, and very stringent quarantines of close contacts are the best way to contain Covid-19," he said.
davisem

Taiwan's President Meets With Ted Cruz in the U.S., and China Objects - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...taiwan-ted-cruz-china.html

shared by davisem on 09 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan met with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in Houston and then flew off to visit leaders in Latin America, seeking to promote her island’s cause as it gets positive signals from President-elect Donald J. Trump.
  • Ms. Tsai was looking to expand her ties to the Republican Party as it takes control of the White House and keeps its grip on Congress.
  • “We discussed our mutual opportunity to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges and economic relations.”
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • “The People’s Republic of China needs to understand that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves,” Mr. Cruz said.
  • The United States does not maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as a result of negotiations with Beijing that led to Washington’s recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1979.
  • China has warned Mr. Trump against making changes to the One China policy after he takes office on Jan. 20. The warning came in response to a phone call between Ms. Tsai and Mr. Trump after his November election victory, the highest-level exchange between American and Taiwanese leaders since the end of diplomatic relations
  • “Cruz is influential above and beyond many senators, given his performance in the last election campaign. It makes sense to add Cruz, whatever his relationship is going to be with the Trump administration.”
  • Beijing’s influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is growing, and it is expected to achieve recognition from more countries, as China is the wealthier benefactor.
  • We will continue to meet with anyone, including the Taiwanese, as we see fit.”
  • While American leaders have vowed to defend Taiwan from attack, the United States is not legally bound to do so, despite what Mr. Cruz said. Advertisement Continue reading the main story
  • Beijing opposed any contact between Taiwan’s leader and “anyone from the U.S. government,” saying it threatens to hurt ties between Beijing and Washington.
  • “The U.S. is Taiwan’s most important ally and friend, and it occupies a special place in the hearts of the Chinese people,”
  • neither Mr. Trump nor anyone on his transition team would be meeting with Ms. Tsai.
  • “In general, it raises Tsai’s national and international stature to be going on trips like this,”
  • davisem on 09 Jan 17
     
    Ms. Tsai's stop in Houston preceded visits to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, four of the 20 countries, along with the Vatican, that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than China. Last month, São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation off the west coast of Africa, severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
katherineharron

US and China deploy aircraft carriers in South China Sea as Philippines prepares for jo... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

taiwan

shared by katherineharron on 12 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Military activity in the South China Sea spiked over the weekend as a Chinese aircraft carrier entered the region and a US Navy expeditionary strike group wrapped up exercises.
  • the US and Philippines were preparing for joint drills as the US secretary of defense proposed ways to deepen military cooperation between Washington and Manila after China massed vessels in disputed waters.
  • China's state-run Global Times on Sunday said the country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, steamed into the South China Sea on Saturday after completing a week of naval exercises around Taiwan.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • There was no official announcement of the Liaoning's position
  • The Liaoning's reported arrival in the South China Sea came after a US Navy expeditionary strike group, fronted by the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, conducted exercises in the South China Sea a day earlier.
  • The ships also carried hundreds of Marine ground forces from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit as well as their supporting helicopters and F-35 fighter jets.Read More
  • "This expeditionary strike force fully demonstrates that we maintain a combat-credible force, capable of responding to any contingency, deter aggression, and provide regional security and stability in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,"
  • Exercises by the Chinese carrier "can establish wider maritime defensive positions, safeguard China's coastal regions, and keep US military activities in check," the report said, citing Wei.
  • US analyst described the Liaoning's presence in the South China Sea as normal for the spring when weather conditions are conducive to training.
  • On Monday, more than 1,700 US and Philippines troops were beginning two weeks of military exercises, Reuters reported, citing Philippine military chief Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana.
  • The proposals included ways of "enhancing situational awareness of threats in the South China Sea" and come after "the recent massing of People's Republic of China maritime militia vessels at Whitsun Reef," in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone in the Spratly Islands, the statement said.
  • Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Saturday tweeted he will work to have any attack on Philippine civilian craft trigger mutual defense aid, CNN Philippines reported.
  • Beijing accuses Washington and other foreign navies of stoking tensions in the region by sending in warships like the current expeditionary group led by the carrier Roosevelt.
  • Tensions extend to the northeastern edges of the South China Sea, where the island of Taiwan sits
  • Beijing claims the democratic, self-governed island of almost 24 million people as its territory
  • the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.
  • Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that Beijing will never allow Taiwan to become formally independent
  • Before moving into the South China Sea at the weekend, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning had been putting on a show of military muscle around Taiwan for a week, according to Chinese state media. At one point the People's Liberation Army flanked Taiwan, with the Liaoning and its escorts operating in the Pacific Ocean to the east and PLA warplanes making forays into Taiwan's self-declared air defense identification zone to the west.
  • Analysts said the exercises were a warning to Taipei and Washington that Beijing would not brook any moves for Taiwanese independence
  • "What is a real concern to us is increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan," Blinken said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
  • "We have a serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change that status quo by force," Blinken said.
anonymous

The most dangerous place on Earth | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-most-dangerous-place-on-earth

taiwan china us usmilitary

shared by anonymous on 29 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • THE TEST of a first-rate intelligence, wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. For decades just such an exercise of high-calibre ambiguity has kept the peace between America and China over Taiwan
  • this strategic ambiguity is breaking down. The United States is coming to fear that it may no longer be able to deter China from seizing Taiwan by force. Admiral Phil Davidson, who heads the Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress in March that he worried about China attacking Taiwan as soon as 2027.
  • One reason is economic. The island lies at the heart of the semiconductor industry. TSMC, the world’s most valuable chipmaker, etches 84% of the most advanced chips. Were production at TSMC to stop, so would the global electronics industry, at incalculable cost.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Taiwan is an arena for the rivalry between China and America. Although the United States is not treaty-bound to defend Taiwan, a Chinese assault would be a test of America’s military might and its diplomatic and political resolve. If the Seventh Fleet failed to turn up, China would overnight become the dominant power in Asia.
  • The government in Beijing insists it has a duty to bring about unification—even, as a last resort, by means of invasion. The Taiwanese, who used to agree that their island was part of China (albeit a non-Communist one), have taken to electing governments that stress its separateness, while stopping short of declaring independence.
  • Some American analysts conclude that military superiority will sooner or later tempt China into using force against Taiwan, not as a last resort but because it can. China has talked itself into believing that America wants to keep the Taiwan crisis boiling and may even want a war to contain China’s rise.
  • Xi Jinping, China’s president, has not even begun to prepare his people for a war likely to inflict mass casualties and economic pain on all sides. In its 100th year the Communist Party is building its claim to power on prosperity, stability and China’s status in its region and growing role in the world. All that would be jeopardised by an attack whose result, whatever the US Navy says, comes with lots of uncertainty attached, not least over how to govern a rebellious Taiwan. Why would Mr Xi risk it all now, when China could wait until the odds are even better?
  • America requires weapons to deter China from launching an amphibious invasion; it must prepare its allies, including Japan and South Korea; and it needs to communicate to China that its battle plans are credible. This will be a tricky balance to strike. Deterrence usually strives to be crystal-clear about retaliation.
martinelligi

Learning from Taiwan about fighting Covid-19 - and using EHRs - STAT - 0 views

www.statnews.com/...sing-electronic-health-records

taiwan COVID-19

shared by martinelligi on 10 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • One of the strongest performers is Taiwan, with 446 confirmed cases and just seven deaths for nearly 24 million citizens, or 0.03 deaths per 100,000. On a per capita basis, the U.S. has 1,200 times as many Covid-19 deaths as Taiwan.
  • Taiwan could easily have had a Covid-19 disaster. It is situated less than 100 miles from China, and more than 1 million Taiwanese work in China. There is frequent travel between the two countries. As a result, Taiwan is at high risk of exposure to any novel infection that arises in China. So why didn’t it get slammed by SARS-Cov-2?
  • accidents of history, including the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that began in February 2003. It generated a culture of taking infections from China seriously — unlike what happened in the U.S. The island also has a strong “face mask” culture, which the U.S. should be emulating, but isn’t.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • deliberate, systematic use of its digital health infrastructure.
  • Every person in Taiwan has a health card with a unique ID that all doctors and hospitals use to access online medical records. Providers use the card to document care episodes for reimbursement from the Ministry of Health. As a result, the card gives the ministry regular, nearly real-time data on physician and hospital visits and use of specific services.
  • When Covid-19 hit, the health card and electronic health records system were repurposed to fight the spread of the virus.
  • “Taiwan enhanced Covid-19 case finding by proactively seeking out patients with severe respiratory symptoms (based on information from the National Health Insurance [NHI] database) who had tested negative for influenza and retested them for Covid-19.” The availability of almost immediate data on patient visits allowed the country to efficiently identify, test, trace, and isolate cases. This has dramatically reduced Covid-19 spread without the need for extensive lockdowns.
  • we seem reluctant to allow the Department of Health and Human Services to monitor patient encounters, as Taiwan does, to track disease and determine what medical tests and treatments to order.
  • Insurers already get data based on hospital and physician claims, but only weeks or months after encounters, making the information less useful for tracking infectious outbreaks
katyshannon

China and Taiwan leaders hail historic talks - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-34742680

china taiwan leaders talks politics history

shared by katyshannon on 09 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The leaders of China and Taiwan have held historic talks in Singapore - their first in more than 60 years.Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou shook hands at the start of the talks, which were seen as largely symbolic.
  • China views Taiwan as a breakaway province which will one day be reunited with the mainland. But many Taiwanese see it as independent and are concerned at China's growing influence.
  • The meeting "has opened a historic chapter in the cross-Strait relations, and history will remember today", he added.The meeting took place in neutral territory on the sidelines of a state visit by Mr Xi to Singapore. Relations between China and Taiwan have improved under Mr Ma since he took office in 2008, with better economic ties, improving tourism links, and a trade pact signed.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The two sides split in 1949 when the Kuomintang lost to the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war and set up a new government in Taiwan.
  • Mr Ma proposed reducing hostility across the Taiwan Strait, expanding exchanges and establishing a cross-strait hotline, according to Taiwan's central news agency. He said this was part of consolidating the "1992 consensus" - the agreement under which both sides recognise the principle of "one China" but define it in their own ways.Similar remarks were made by Mr Xi, who said upholding the consensus would help "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation".
Javier E

How U.S. can defeat coronavirus: Heed Asia?s lessons from epidemics past - The Washingt... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...a-b199-3a9799c54512_story.html

pandemic lessons asia policy crisis

shared by Javier E on 19 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • in wealthy places on China's periphery — Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea — a rapid response swung into action.One reason was that they had learned from the past.
  • “We were all burned very badly with SARS, but actually it turned out to be a blessing for us.”
  • Political will, dedicated resources, sophisticated tracking and a responsible population have kept coronavirus infections and deaths in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore relatively low. South Korea, with more deaths, has led the way in widespread testing.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • In Taiwan, officials boarded planes arriving from Wuhan and assessed passengers for symptoms before allowing anyone to disembark. Within days, Singapore, South Korea and other Asian states had implemented similar steps.
  • A year after SARS, Taiwan established a National Health Command Center that brought together all levels and branches of government, preparing for the possibility of another disease outbreak. Its interventions over the past two months have been decisive in keeping Taiwan ahead of the curve
  • They didn’t hesitate, they didn’t want to die,” Wang said. “The mortality rate was so high [during SARS] and they didn’t know how bad this one was going to be. Nobody thought it was like the flu.”
  • As early as Jan. 5, Taiwan was tracing people who had been in Wuhan in the previous 14 days. Those with symptoms of respiratory infections were quarantined.
  • In subsequent weeks, authorities used data and technology to identify and track cases, communicated effectively to reassure the public, offered relief to businesses and allocated medical resources where they were needed most — rationing face masks and dramatically increasing their production.
  • On Jan. 27, Taiwan combined the databases of its National Health Insurance Administration and National Immigration Agency, allowing it to track everyone who had been in Wuhan in the recent past and alert doctors to patients’ travel histories
  • Now, Taiwan is hoping to keep its infection numbers down and has asked residents not to travel abroad after its biggest single-day jump of cases — 23 — on Wednesday. It is also barring most noncitizens from entering.
  • South Korea, meanwhile, has become the poster child for testing. Its success is rooted in a previous failure: The limited availability of test kits was seen as having aggravated the 2015 MERS outbreak, when the country suffered the second-highest caseload after Saudi Arabia.
  • More than 260,000 people in South Korea have been tested for the virus, the highest per capita anywhere, with testing and treatment fees covered by the government and drive-through centers capturing global attention
  • Whereas the United States and Japan keep testing tightly controlled by a central authority, South Korea opened the process to the private sector, introducing a path to grant “emergency usage approval” to tests for pathogens of pandemic potential.
  • Singapore, too, benefited from its own capabilities to test, as did Hong Kong and Japan. All developed their own diagnostic tests when the covid-19 genome sequence was published.
  • Outside mainland China, the territory had been the biggest casualty of the Communist Party’s coverup of the SARS outbreak, with some 300 deaths and little clarity on what was unfolding until it was too late.
  • This time, though, and without needing to be told much, Hong Kong residents took matters into their own hands. The city’s financial district was reduced to a ghost town in early February as companies closed offices. Bakeries known for hour-long weekend lines were abandoned.
  • Parties, weddings and family gatherings were canceled — without any government order. Almost everyone rushed to ­procure masks; a recent study ­estimated that 74 percent to 98 percent of residents wore them when leaving their homes. Voluntary social distancing was hailed as a key reason for the lower rate of infections.
  • From electronic wristbands to smartphone trackers, Asian jurisdictions have pulled out all the stops to ensure that suspected patients comply with quarantine and isolation orders, monitoring that is backed by laws that were tightened post-SARS.
  • Singapore used its FBI equivalent, the Criminal Investigation Department, to effectively interrogate every confirmed case with stunning granularity — even using patients’ digital wallets to trace their footsteps. Those caught lying face fines and jail time.
  • In South Korea, information on the movements of infected people before they were tested is collected and relayed over smartphones, creating a real-time ma
  • Taiwan tracks infected people’s whereabouts via smartphones
  • In Hong Kong, everyone subject to a compulsory quarantine must activate real-time location-sharing on their phone or wear an electronic wristband.
  • These measures have been backed by local populations that lived through previous epidemics and have largely shed concerns about privacy and tracking.
  • Americans should not focus “only on the kind of high-profile displays of state power that have made headlines from China” but also look at countries such as South Korea that are “balancing Democratic openness with rapid, concerted public-health action.”
  • Experts agree, though, that Western governments must be prepared to limit their citizens’ movements, mandate isolation for positive cases and track contacts regardless of privacy concerns.
criscimagnael

Biden Administration Begins Trade Dialogue With Taiwan - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...biden-taiwan-trade.html

shared by criscimagnael on 01 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • The Biden administration said on Wednesday that it would pursue negotiations to strengthen trade and technology ties with Taiwan, a move that is aimed at countering China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region and one that is likely to rankle Beijing.
  • The talks with Taiwan will cover many of the same issues as the framework, like digital trade ways to reduce red tape for importers and exporters. U.S. officials said the talks, the first of which will be held in Washington at the end of June, would focus on a variety of issues, including opening up trade in agriculture and aligning technological standards.
  • Several topics of the discussion are clearly aimed at addressing mutual complaints over Chinese trade practices.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Taiwan has long pushed for deeper trade ties with the United States. In 2020, it eased restrictions on imports of U.S. beef and pork in an effort to entice the United States into formal negotiations. The next year, the United States and Taiwan resumed some trade talks despite Beijing’s opposition.
  • Given Taiwan’s contested status, the two sides will also meet unofficially and under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan, which is the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which represents Taiwan in the United States in the absence of diplomatic recognition.
anonymous

Once Formidable, Taiwan's Military Now Overshadowed by China's - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-taiwan-military.html

US economics policy china taiwan war weapon

shared by anonymous on 04 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • Taiwan’s Military Now Overshadowed by China’s
  • Taiwan’s armed forces, by contrast, have fallen way behind, struggling to recruit enough soldiers and sailors — and to equip those they have
  • A major obstacle is that countries that might sell it the most sophisticated weaponry are increasingly reluctant to do so for fear of provoking China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The unwillingness to anger China extends even to the United States, on which Taiwan has long depended for its defense.
  • Taiwan has relied on geography — a mountainous main island 80 miles across a windswept strait — and the support of the United States.
  • While Taiwan still has vocal support in Washington, especially in Congress, China’s economic and military rise has made it harder for the United States to ignore Beijing.
  • China has developed ballistic missiles on mobile launchers that, although untested in battle, would threaten American aircraft carriers. Denying the American military the ability to operate freely around Taiwan would undermine a core element of Taiwan’s strategy.
1 - 20 of 164 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page