Tag: taiwan

Bomb Threats Against Shen Yun Dance and Music Shows Traced to CCP’s Huawei-Linked Institute

Taiwan’s Criminal Police Bureau has reportedly traced a recent wave of mass violence threats targeting Shen Yun Performing Arts shows to an institute affiliated with Chinese tech giant Huawei, according to a new report by Liberty Times.

The investigation comes in response to a surge of emailed threats over the past week, which targeted Shen Yun performances and several Taiwanese government institutions. The messages included bomb and shooting threats, warning of violence unless the performances were canceled. On a single day alone, authorities documented 13 such threats sent to public offices, train stations, and cultural venues across cities, including Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Keelung.

After launching a cross-agency task force, Taiwanese police say they traced the origin of the emails to the Huawei Xi’an Institute in Shaanxi Province, China. Though the threats appeared to have been routed through multiple international VPNs, digital forensics reportedly led investigators to a network connected to the Huawei facility. Officials noted that personnel tied to the institute may have been involved and did not rule out links to China’s notorious online influence operations, often dubbed the “Internet Army.”

The threatening emails contained politically charged language, including usernames referencing “8964,” an apparent nod to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Investigators believe this suggests possible state-sponsored psychological operations targeting Taiwan’s social and cultural stability.

Shen Yun, a U.S.-based performing arts company affiliated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, has long drawn the ire of Beijing due to its strong anti-Communist message and depictions of religious persecution in China. The troupe’s performances, which blend classical Chinese dance with original orchestral music, are frequently disrupted by Chinese interference campaigns abroad.

In response to the findings, Shen Yun spokesperson Leeshai Lemish, who has served as the company’s master of ceremonies since 2006, urged U.S. authorities to take the threats seriously.

Keep reading

Taiwan Offers Zero Tariffs and More Investment in U.S.

Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te on Sunday proposed zero tariffs, lower trade barriers, and more investment in the United States instead of retaliating against President Donald Trump’s tariff increases.

President Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday included 32 percent on all Taiwanese exports except semiconductors, which are Taiwan’s most celebrated and economically significant product.

Trump had threatened in March to include Taiwanese semiconductors on his tariff list, because he said Taiwan “stole” the industry from America with unfair trade practices.

“They stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit. I blame the people that were sitting in this seat because they allowed it to happen,” Trump said in March.

The president’s position on Taiwanese semiconductors softened a little after the island’s biggest chipmaker, TSMC, pledged to spend $100 billion on five new semiconductor factories in Arizona over the next four years.

Officials in Taipei were stunned when Trump slapped 32-percent tariffs on everything except semiconductors last week. Taiwanese cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee called the tariffs “deeply unreasonable” and “highly regrettable.”

Keep reading

US Releases $870 Million in Military Aid for Taiwan, Angering China

The US has quietly released $870 million in funding for military aid to Taiwan after it was briefly paused during the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid.

Reuters first reported on February 21 that the US released the military aid for Taiwan as part of $5.3 billion in exemptions from the foreign aid pause. China, which strongly opposes US military support for Taiwan, reacted to the news on February 26.

“We are deeply concerned over relevant reports,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian. “China has all along opposed US military assistance to China’s Taiwan region, which has severely violated the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and sent a gravely wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

Lin added that China urges the US to “stop arming Taiwan and undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei as part of a normalization agreement with Beijing in 1979, but it wasn’t until 2023 that the US began providing US-funded military aid, a step that marked a significant escalation. In 2024, President Biden signed off on more than $1 billion in military aid for Taiwan.

The US military support is done in the name of deterrence, but it has only escalated tensions in the region. During a press conference on February 27, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian issued a strong warning against US involvement in Taiwan, which has been encouraged by the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Keep reading

China Furious After State Dept Changes Line On ‘Taiwan Independence’

China is furious after a State Department fact sheet on Taiwan has been updated. The new updated version has dropped a line which previously stated “we do not support Taiwan independence.”

The State Department has downplayed it as a “routine” update to its online fact sheet on American relations with Taiwan. The change happened last week, but has now triggered a strong rebuke from Beijing, which fears Washington is changing its official long-running policy of not officially endorsing effots toward Taiwan political independence and sovereignty.

The fact sheet still displays a US commitment to ‘One China’ – but still the Chinese Foreign Ministry has on Monday called on the Trump administration to “immediately correct its mistakes” over the removal of the line.

Keep reading

Trump Administration To Deliver More Weapons To Taiwan

In what will be seen by China as an escalation of war, the United States will deliver more weapons to Taiwan under the incoming Trump administration. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has confirmed that the president-elect intends to give the island, currently at odds with China over its sovereignty, all the defense systems it has paid for. This move highlights the frequent U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

China’s leaders have repeatedly condemned United States arms sales to Taipei as “destabilizing and provocative.” In response to the weapons agreements, China has conducted frequent naval and aerial drills around the island as a way of showing force against U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

Speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington on Tuesday, Waltz, a Florida Congressman, stated: “We have over a $20 billion backlog of things that they paid for and that we need to work hard to free up and have them get what they paid for as a deterrent measure. The backlog is mainly due to the extensive nature of U.S. arms sales.”

Keep reading

It Begins: China Cuts Undersea Internet Cables to Taiwan

In September, a group of journalists (including me) were hosted by Taiwanese national security experts to discuss the developing crisis of Chinese aggression toward Taiwan.

The portion of the week-long visit at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, the Taiwanese Defense and Security Think Tank akin to MITRE, Rand, or The Aerospace Corporation, contained an urgent and compelling message.

“We will be quarantined within six months and the first step of the operation will be China cutting our undersea cables to interrupt our communications with the world” was what Senior research fellows at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, Drs. Tzu-Yun Su, Shan-son Kung, and Charles C.J. Wang, shared.  Their observations were prescient because that has now happened.

Keep reading

US calls on Taiwan to stop supplying AI chips to China

Washington has officially demanded that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing companies, stop supplying China with chips used in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Reuters reported on November 10. However, Washington’s pressure on China’s semiconductor industry also includes Taiwan once Donald Trump comes to power next year.

TSMC is one of the largest chip producers and cooperates with several technology companies, such as Nvidia and AMD, and specialises in integrated circuit, also known as a microchip, a small device made up of several interconnected electronic components that are etched onto a small piece of semiconductor material.

Taiwan produces about 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, mostly by TSMC, and ensuring these chips do not reach China is a priority for Washington, an effort that will only intensify when Trump becomes president.

“The US ordered Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers that are often used in artificial intelligence applications,” Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the subject.

Keep reading

Russian Foreign Minister – “If Ukraine Joins NATO Eeither Ukraine Disappears, Or NATO Does.”

Important quotes from the BRICS Summit where the other ‘new world order’ is shaping against Western hegemony.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia declared that if Ukraine joins NATO, Russia would destroy Ukraine as a nation, or even NATO itself.

President Putin also said he hoped NATO heard his warning about the consequences of allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike inside Russia.

Russian President Putin warned failure to recognize a state of Palestine will fuel “permanent crisis and inevitable large-scale violence.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared, “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. The Taiwan question is not about freedom of navigation but about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Keep reading

Have We Ever Seen A Time When 4 Major Global Wars Are All Percolating Simultaneously?

We have reached a moment in history that none of us will forget.  We are literally standing on the precipice of the unthinkable, and most people don’t even realize it.  Of course horrific wars have a way of erupting when most people are not expecting them.  Hardly anyone expected a global war to erupt in 1914, but then tens of millions of precious souls died over the next four years.  Hardly anyone expected a global war to erupt in 1939, but then tens of millions of precious souls died over the next six years.  This time around, what is happening should be glaringly obvious to everyone.  Personally, I have been specifically warning about what is taking place right now for more than a decade.  If we do not change course, billions of precious souls could die during the nightmarish global wars that are rapidly approaching.

At this moment, most Americans have no idea that a war between the United States and China is coming.

Just a few days ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping boldly talked about “preparation for war” as he was dressed in military fatigues…

On Thursday Chinese Communist Dictator Xi Jinping commanded troops to strengthen their preparedness for war while visiting his People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force following last week’s drills of surrounding the sovereign country of Taiwan.

“Xi said the military should ‘comprehensively strengthen training and preparation for war, (and) ensure troops have solid combat capabilities,’ CCTV reported,” according to the AFP and reported on Barrons Saturday.

Why would China need to prepare for war?

Needless to say, nobody is planning to attack China.

The truth is that the only reason that China would need to prepare for war is if it was planning to invade Taiwan.

Because the moment that China invades Taiwan, the U.S. and China will be at war.

Keep reading

Democratization as Regime Preservation

When in the 1970s it became increasingly clear Taipei and its allies in the United States were no longer going to be able to postpone Washington’s recognition of the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing, the longtime dictator of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, grasped for a solution to the problem of how his regime was to survive de-recognition as the official government of China.

The answer? Democratization.

This strategy, which his successors embraced and ultimately fulfilled over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, proved far-sighted.

Taiwan’s democratization process began in the late 1970s, marking a significant shift from decades of authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT). The death of Chiang Kai-shek in 1975 and the ascension of his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, initiated gradual political liberalization. In the late 1970s, internal and external pressures, including Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation following the United Nations’ recognition of the People’s Republic of China, forced the KMT to consider reforms.

In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed, despite the ongoing martial law. This was a critical moment, as it was the first opposition party allowed in Taiwan since the KMT’s rule began. In 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, which had been in place since 1949, signaling the beginning of a more open political environment.

Following Chiang Ching-kuo’s death in 1988, his successor, Lee Teng-hui, further advanced democratic reforms. Under Lee’s leadership, Taiwan saw the end of the “Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion” in 1991, which had allowed the KMT to govern without elections. Lee also oversaw the first direct presidential election in 1996, in which he won, solidifying Taiwan’s transition to a full democracy.

By the late 1990s, Taiwan had established a multi-party system with regular, competitive elections, marking a successful transition from one-party rule to a vibrant democracy.

Keep reading