2016 - 4th Quarter
A Timely Calling of China's Bluff
It became the phone call that was heard around the world; it was an earthquake that set off a world-class tsunami, and a change in atmospheric conditions that brought an unprecedented media hailstorm. Ironically, it was simply Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen calling US president elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory. ...
The US Can Learn a lot from Taiwan
It is time for the US to scrap its Electoral College system in choosing its president and simply go with the popular vote. Yes, I know, as soon as one mentions this, someone will pipe up with, "but the founding fathers etc. etc." as if the US has not changed from the original 13 colonies and the first presidential election of 1789 and as if its electoral college process had not already been changed to be more realistic. ...
Elections, History and Cyclical Views: Taiwan and China
While the US presidential and congressional elections loom on the horizon, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has just finished its Sixth Plenum of the 18th Party Congress. This plenum has left many with the feeling that Chinese President Xi Jinping has primarily used it to consolidate his control of the party and its direction. ...
Taiwan Needs a New Consensus
There's good consensus and then there's bad consensus; similarly there's true consensus and then there's false consensus. And so in past weeks, as ripples of tension and division have been building up in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Taiwanese have no doubt: the trip wire that opened that flow gate is none other than that battered, old canard, the so-called "1992 consensus." ...
Taiwan, the US and a Free Press
Whether one looks at the practice of democracy in Taiwan or in the US, this year will definitely go down as a historic one if only because of the presidential elections in each nation. ...
Taiwan's New Role in the World
The Cold War is over and if the Cold War was about communism, then communism is dead. It's dead, certainly, as far as any nations that claim the Marxist-Leninist version of it. To be sure a few nations like Laos and Vietnam may still list it as their ideology, however, most of the nations that laid claim to represent the principles of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" are nowhere near that mark. ...