Major players in global trade will consider possible countermeasures and strategies to moderate the medium- and long-terms impacts of Donald Trump’s trade protectionism. Amid the trade war, China, Japan, and South Korea are reviving the delayed agenda of East Asia integration.
US President Donald Trump recently signed the Taiwan Travel Act, appointed pro-Taiwan John Bolton as his national security advisor, and ordered a tariff on China’s imports. Has he really undergone a change of heart and mind about Taiwan and China?
On March 16, 2018, US President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which will encourage and allow for official exchanges between Taipei and Washington at all levels. Beijing expressed its strong dissatisfaction with the Act but has not clarified its countermeasures so far.
The US is trying to organize a "coalition of the willing" to interdict US listed suspect ships carrying UN-banned cargo to or from North Korea. If it fails to win support to do this from Russia and China, the US may be willing to use necessary force without UNSC approval.
Largely unhindered filibustering results in notably more harm than good being visited on any serious legislative process. Full freedoms to filibuster will lead to regular abuses of process at the expense of making timely progress on significant, legislative proposals.
Tsai Ing-wen’s leadership of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan has drawn much criticism for its inability to accommodate election promises, over-inclusivity of interest groups, and preserving the status quo of cross-Strait relations.
The Spanish 2017 extradition of 121 Taiwanese suspects to mainland China met with Taipei’s protests. However, it suggests a deep acceptance of Taiwan’s international isolation based on Beijing’s “One China Principle”.
Through re-examining survey data on political identities in Hong Kong since 1997, we refute the widespread assumption that national and local identities are in a zero-sum relationship and argues for a measurement of identities different from the standard approach.
At the end of 2017 and the start of 2018, public opinion surveys in Taiwan showed a decline in Taiwanese nationalism. The percentage of people who identify as Taiwanese-only went down, while that of dual-identity (of both Taiwanese and Chinese) went up.
On January 27-28, 2018, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono visited Beijing to improve bilateral relations between the two countries. The Chinese side reciprocated and publicly announced its intention to improve relations with Japan.
