Debby Wu | Taipei | April 19

AP - The United States may post Marines at its unofficial embassy in Taiwan - a small but symbolically significant change in its delicate political relationship with the self-ruled island.

A State Department advertisement in the English-language Taipei Times newspaper called for contractors to construct quarters for Marine security guards at a new U.S. compound in the capital, Taipei.

Since the U.S. switched its recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, there have been no marine guards at its Taipei facility - the American Institute in Taiwan - in keeping with its deliberately low political profile.

George Friedman | April 15

Stratfor - China is an island. We do not mean it is surrounded by water; we mean China is surrounded by territory that is difficult to traverse. Therefore, China is hard to invade; given its size and population, it is even harder to occupy. This also makes it hard for the Chinese to invade others; not utterly impossible, but quite difficult. Containing a fifth of the world’s population, China can wall itself off from the world, as it did prior to the United Kingdom’s forced entry in the 19th century and under Mao Zedong. All of this means China is a great power, but one that has to behave very differently than other great powers.

Boao, China | April 13

AP - They've spent nearly six decades bickering, pointing weapons at each other and thinking of reasons not to talk. But over the weekend, China and Taiwan began what appears to be a bold new effort to ease tensions that have long threatened to spark a war.

It began with a hastily arranged meeting Saturday between Taiwanese Vice President-elect Vincent Siew and Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Both were attending a business conference on the tropical Chinese island of Hainan, and they agreed to sit down for a 20-minute chat.

Although the visit was brief and mostly focused on economics, it was historically significant and loaded with symbols that are extremely important in Chinese culture.

Julian E. Barnes & Ben DuBose | Washington | March 26

Los Angeles Times - The U.S. military mistakenly shipped parts from a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile to Taiwan, Pentagon officials announced Tuesday in the second incident to come to light in recent months in which nuclear weapons were mishandled.

Pentagon officials said the material sent to Taiwan consisted of four electrical fuses for the ICBM nose cones. The fuses, used to trigger nuclear weapons, do not contain nuclear material.

But experts on nuclear security said the mistaken transfer showed a serious deterioration in the safeguards and controls that the U.S. military has over its nuclear warheads.

"This is really unbelievable," said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which advocates reducing the number of nuclear weapons. "If the Russians had shipped triggers to Tehran we would be going nuts right now."

U.S. officials anxiously notified China of the error, but experts did not expect Beijing to react with alarm because of long-standing U.S. policies against arming Taiwan with nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey has more at Arms Control Wonk

Taipei | March 22

AFP - Taiwanese began voting early Saturday in a presidential election expected to turn on the slowing economy and hopes their new leader will mend damaged relations with China.

The poll is being watched closely by Beijing and Washington for signs of a shift in approach after eight years of tensions under outgoing President Chen Shui-bian.

It pits Harvard-educated Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang, who is considered the frontrunner, against pro-independence ruling party chief Frank Hsieh.

Jane Rickards | Taipei | February 3

WaPo -

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian inaugurated a runway on one of the disputed Spratly Islands on Saturday and insisted the archipelago belongs to Taiwan despite claims by China and several other Asian countries.

Chen's one-day round-trip voyage was designed to dramatize Taiwan's claim to the string of islands with the kind of gesture for which he has become famous during more than seven years as leader of this self-ruled island. Disregarding other countries' assertions, he declared the island he visited, Taiping Dao, "an intrinsic part of our territory," according to a statement from his office.

"From the beginning, we have had our brothers in the military and coastal patrol stationed here, and we have in succession set up relevant atmospheric, humanitarian and ecological testing facilities, occupying and administering this island for half a century," he added.

The Spratly Islands, more than 100 rocky islets, reefs and atolls in the South China Sea, are claimed in full or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. They are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and potential oil and gas deposits.

Beijing | February 3

AFP - China warned Saturday that Taiwan's decision to hold a referendum on trying to join the United Nations could threaten peace in the Asia Pacific region, state media said.

China said the decision to hold one of the referendum on whether to bid for membership under the name "Taiwan" was a move towards formal independence by the island, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"Once this scheme is realised, it certainly will seriously impact relations across the Taiwan Straits, seriously harm the fundamental interests of compatriots on both sides and seriously imperil peace in the Taiwan Straits and even peace in the Asia-Pacific region," Xinhua said, citing the statement.

January 12

BBC - Taiwan's opposition nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party has won a landslide victory in parliamentary polls, official results show.

The KMT, which wants closer ties with China, secured 72% of the seats in the 113-seat chamber, beating President Chen Shui-bian's party, the DPP.

The independence-leaning president said he was "shamed", resigning as chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party.The elections are seen as a barometer for the presidential poll on 22 March.

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunified.

David Lague | Beijing | January 6

IHT - China plans to open a new commercial aviation route through the Taiwan Strait in a move that officials in Taipei said was a threat to regional peace and a danger to air safety.

The new route between Hong Kong and Shanghai would track just inside the Chinese side of the unofficial dividing line through the middle of the Taiwan Strait, an area that both sides have mostly avoided since the 1950s, security and aviation specialists in Taiwan said.

The United States, Taiwan's closest military ally, has been drawn into the dispute and has held talks about the proposed route with Beijing and Taipei, according to U.S. and Taiwanese officials.

Taipei | Dec 11

AFP - Taiwan's independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian on Monday renewed his previous pledge that he would not declare independence during the last six months of his office.

He told visiting American senior politician Raymond Burghardt that he would abide by the so-called "five nos" policy he had previously promised when he was first elected president in 2000. That policy was that he would not declare formal independence during the term of his office.

Eric Koo Peng Kuan | Austin | December 10

The Agonist - Both China and Taiwan are fond of loudly announcing military developments at the Taiwan Strait to the point of gaudy advertising by the rhetoric of politicians from both sides played up greatly by Chinese and Taiwanese media. One must wonder, if the wisdom of Sun Tzu, who always advocated hiding one’s intentions from his enemy, could truly be applied in the context of the modern China-Taiwan conflict. Third party military analysts of the Taiwan Strait flashpoint region would certainly shake their heads in exasperation of what truly are the intentions of both sides.

Historically always a land power, China saw the defeat of its pre-modern fleet against the Japanese in the late 19th century, (1894-1895), when it lost eight out of its twelve ships to the modern Japanese fleet. Thereafter, political and social events dictated no need for another establishment of a surface fleet. Indeed, the lack of a strong naval fleet in the 1920s to 1930s, led to a failure in deterring the Japanese land expansion on the Asian continent at the expense of China during the Sino Japanese War.

Taipei | Oct 10

AFP - Taiwan flexed its military muscles Wednesday, showing off two home-developed missiles in a rare parade seen as a reminder to China that it has the weaponry to defend itself.

In a televised National Day address, President Chen Shui-bian said China's own military build-up posed a threat to world peace, and urged it to withdraw nearly 1,000 ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at the island.

The military parade -- the first in 16 years -- came amid growing tensions between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 after a civil war.

The most eye-catching weaponry on parade were the supersonic Hsiung-feng 3 ship-to-ship missile and the Tien Kung 3 anti-missile system.

The defence ministry also for the first time allowed a glimpse of a locally developed unmanned surveillance plane that could be used to gather battlefield data.

But the island's first cruise missile, the Hsiung-feng 2E -- which because of its range could reach the Chinese mainland -- was not on display following reported pressure from Taipei's main ally Washington.

Taipei, Taiwan | September 30

AP - Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party passed a resolution Sunday asserting island's separate identity from China.

David Lague | Taipei | Sept 28

IHT - Faced with a threatening military buildup by China, an increasingly outgunned Taiwan is quietly pushing ahead with plans to develop missiles that could strike the mainland, defense and security experts say.

Taiwan has in recent months tested a land attack cruise missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles, that could carry a 400-kilogram warhead to targets as distant as Shanghai, according to military analysts.

Some Taiwanese military specialists have argued for decades that Taiwan should develop offensive weapons, including missiles, as a deterrent to the mainland, which has threatened to attack the self-governing island if it moves toward formal independence. The Pentagon estimates that China has deployed 900 missiles opposite Taiwan.

Taiwan's military currently has no long-range missiles that could be used to attack distant targets in mainland China.

Senior military officials and lawmakers in the governing Democratic Progressive Party of President Chen Shui-bian have confirmed that the land attack cruise missiles were under development.

Steven Edwards | September 15

Ottawa Citizen - 'Why can't the U.S. say no to China?' he asks, vowing to carry out referendum

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian defiantly chided not only China but also the United States yesterday as he vowed to press ahead with a referendum on the island's intensified bid to join the United Nations this time around.

Addressing New York-based journalists via video-link with Taipei, the Taiwan capital, Mr. Chen called on the United States to challenge China's refusal to allow the island into the world body.

"As a democracy, why can't the U.S. say no to China...?" Mr. Chen asked as he questioned Washington's opposition to the referendum despite being the island's closest ally.

Qin Jize | Sydney | September 6

China Daily - Beijing has to send tougher warnings to the Taiwan authorities as the situation across the Taiwan Straits has entered a "highly dangerous period", President Hu Jintao told his US counterpart George W. Bush Thursday. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the annual economic leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Australia.

"This year and next year are going to be a highly dangerous period for the situation in the Taiwan Straits," Hu said. Regardless of warnings from different quarters, the island authorities have flagrantly pursued secessionist activities, such as proposing a "referendum on UN membership" and "seeking to join the UN under the name of Taiwan".

Will Hutton | August 26 | Observer

While obeisant governments bail out dodgy plutocrats, it's ordinary people who foot the bill

One of the most inequitable and amoral acts in modern times is happening in front of our eyes and in Britain there is hardly a murmur of protest. The multi-billion dollar bail-out of global finance after one of the most reckless periods of lending and deal-making since the late 1920s is extraordinarily one-sided.

Little people's taxes are underwriting the mistakes of big people, who in the process have made riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Globalisation, it is now clear, is run in the interests of a global financial class which has Western governments in its thrall. This class does not give a fig for the interests of savers, clients or wider workforces.

The rules of the game are set up solely to benefit the financiers whether in London, New York or Hong Kong. The nonsense at the heart of the crisis - lending 100 per cent mortgages to borrowers with no income, employment or assets, packaging up the resulting debt and selling it to banks around the globe while taking a handsome fee on every transaction - can be launched with impunity. Financial regulation, we are told, hinders the efficiency of financial markets.

Interpol should make arrests in New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing, Frankfurt and Paris, starting with all the executives in the credit-rating agencies who blithely ranked the debt as creditworthy in exchange for fat fees and freebies from the very banks who were making the absurd loans. Governments should bring suits against the executives involved, the repositories of vast personal wealth, to help repair the hole in private and public balance sheets.

Beijing | August 4

China Daily - China has lodged a formal protest with Japan over the playing of the Taiwanese anthem at a basketball tournament in the Japanese city of Tokushima, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.

A Japanese diplomat in Beijing was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Friday and received a "stern representation" over the incident, Xinhua said.

Taiwan usually participates in international sporting events under the name "Chinese Taipei" and must use an Olympic flag and anthem.

Taipei | July 24

AFP - Taiwan on Tuesday expressed regret over the United Nations' rejection of its latest membership bid but vowed to continue efforts to join the international body.

"We deeply regret that the UN turned down our membership application citing Resolution 2758 which deals with China's accession into the agency," said foreign ministry spokesman David Wang.

The island, under its official name "the Republic of China," lost its UN seat to China in 1971, a year before it was evicted from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"The Taiwanese people should not be excluded from international organisations and we will keep trying to join the UN under the name 'Taiwan,'" Wang said.

The UN on Monday returned Taiwan's membership application, according to a statement on its Chinese-language website.

"The decision affirms the UN's adherence to the 'one China' policy," said the brief statement.

** Russia opposes to "UN membership under the name Taiwan"
** Top US military commander in Pacific criticizes Taiwan's president
** China, Taiwan trade barbs over failed U.N. bid

Edward Cody | Taipei, Taiwan | July 8

WaPo - President Chen Shui-bian said Taiwan will press ahead with a controversial referendum on whether the self-ruled island should apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan, dismissing U.S. objections as appeasement of China.

Chen's defiant stand, outlined in frank language during an interview Friday, raised the prospect of a rocky period in Taiwan's relations with the Bush administration and a rise in tension across the volatile 100-mile strait separating Taiwan from mainland China.

China and the United States have complained that the referendum, which would have little practical effect, in fact is designed to promote a change in the island's official name, from Republic of China to Taiwan. This, both governments charged, could be read as a unilateral change in the island's status, something China's leaders have said they will not tolerate.

I remember back a few years ago when I we were hearing rumors from the press about strange neocon shenanigans in Taiwan. Looks like those rumors were substantive:

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

Their goal was to jettison the 'One-China' policy of the last 40 years. They got pretty creative with their methods too:

“The Defense Department, with Feith, Cambone, Wolfowitz [and] Rumsfeld, was dispatching a person to Taiwan every week, essentially to tell the Taiwanese that the alliance was back on,” Wilkerson said, referring to pre-1970s military and diplomatic relations, “essentially to tell Chen Shui-bian, whose entire power in Taiwan rested on the independence movement, that independence was a good thing.”

Thankfully Powell was a canny bureaucratic infighter as well:

Wilkerson said Powell would then dispatch his own envoy “right behind that guy, every time they sent somebody, to disabuse the entire Taiwanese national security apparatus of what they’d been told by the Defense Department.”

What worries me most about this is the level of diplomatic power DoD has usurped in the last few years. This will get worse.

Cross-posted at The Mandate of Heaven

I'm reading a fascinating book--The Island at the Center of the World--by Russell Shorto. No, it is not about Taiwan, though, in many ways, it could be, and the global context in which the story is set, is the same. The second part of the title of Shorto's book should provide you with insight into its main themes--The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotton Colony that Shaped America.

Beijing and Taipei | April 27

The Guardian - The Olympic movement risked being dragged into a diplomatic row between China and Taiwan last night after Taipei refused to accept China's planned route for the 2008 Olympic torch relay, which runs through the island.

Within hours of Beijing's announcement of what would be the longest torch relay in Olympic history - an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mount Everest - Taiwan rejected the plan.

Taipei had said it was happy to participate as part of the international route, which will take in dozens of other cities, including London, San Francisco, Dar Es Salaam, Islamabad and Pyongyang. But the Taiwan stop is scheduled to be followed by Hong Kong and Macau, suggesting that it is part of the Chinese domestic route, which will wind through the country before culminating at the National Stadium on August 8. Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive party said last week it would not accept a place on the relay if the torch entered or left the island via mainland China or Hong Kong and Macau.

Taipei | March 21

AFP -

Soldiers from Taiwan's special forces exit a helicopter on motorcycles in a show of force during a military exercise. (AFP)

Taiwan plans to stage a series of live-fire war games from next month as part of efforts to assess its defence capabilities against bitter rival China, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.

The announcement came as President Chen Shui-bian cautioned against China's rapid military build-up and called for the purchase of more advanced weaponry from the United States, the island's leading arms supplier.

The planned manoeuvres codenamed "Han Kuang 23" (Han Glory) will be held between April and May, the ministry said.

Drills on the islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu and in southern Pingtung county would aim to prevent enemy landings while exercises in the eastern county of Hualien would focus on defence of the airport there, it said.

"Hopefully this year's exercises could be done in a more practical way, like in a war," defence ministry spokesman Major General Wu Chi-fang said, adding that details have yet to be finalised.

Beijing | March 2

AFP - China demanded Friday that the United States cancel a planned sale of US$421 million worth of missiles to Taiwan, warning the deal would harm regional stability and bilateral ties.

"We solemnly demand the leader of the United States...immediately cancel this weapons sale (and) avoid harming the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits and Sino-US relations," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

"The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this. We have raised solemn representations with the US side."

The US Department of Defence this week notified Congress that it planned to sell Taiwan US$421 million worth of missiles, which would help boost the island's defences against rival China.

"The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region," the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said.