By:
John Dotson
Taiwan’s politics, sharply polarized at the best of times, have been particularly contentious entering the summer months of this year. Taiwan’s January 2024 elections produced a divided government, with Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民主進步黨) winning the presidency; and a coalition of the Kuomintang (KMT, 中國國民黨) and the Taiwan’s People’s Party (TPP, 台灣民眾黨) taking a majority of the seats in the Legislative Yuan (立法院). Following serious controversies in 2024 over matters such as the government budget, legislative authority, and the role of the constitutional court (see analysis here and here), civic activists upset over the actions of the majority legislative caucus organized recall efforts against a large number of KMT legislators.
LaiChingTe Feature (1)
By:
Bryce C. Barros
On a mid-May evening in Tokyo, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña Palacios addressed a gathering of representatives, lawmakers, and diplomats from countries without formal diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan). Beside President Peña stood Representative Lee I-yang (李逸洋), Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Japan. The two were addressing a trilateral “friendship reception” co-hosted by the Paraguayan Embassy and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan. “Paraguay stands proudly as a bridge between Japan and Taiwan,” President Peña declared, affirming the small landlocked South American country’s role as a connector between Taiwan and countries outside Taipei’s formal diplomatic circle. Representative Lee responded by thanking Asunción for Paraguay’s enduring support.
Taiwan Japan Feature (1)
By:
Diarra Molock
Undersea cables lie on the seabed deep beneath the waves, making it difficult to detect network sabotage until after the fact. It is therefore easy for foreign governments, such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 中華人民共和國), to argue that one of their nations’ vessels causing the severance of an undersea cable is an accident. In a recent case, the perpetrator cited an 'accident' as the reason for cutting an undersea cable around Taiwan for the fourth time this year. However, in a major shift regarding Taiwan’s national security, on June 12, a Chinese national—who was the captain of a Togolese-registered vessel, Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58)—was sentenced to prison by Taiwanese authorities for severing the Taiwan-Penghu No.3 cable. For the first time, the Taiwanese government has taken serious action to heavily penalize someone who was responsible for endangering Taiwan’s undersea cables—hardware that is now designated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MoDA, 數位發展部) as “critical infrastructure.”
SubseaCable Feature (1)

Read our latest occasional report

The Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) is pleased to announce the publication of a new occasional report titled Through the Firewall: Leveraging Grassroots Online Exchange to Address Cross-Strait Tensions.

This report, which examines cross-Strait communication through online exchanges, was written by Sarah Plovnick, currently a Hou Family Post-Doctoral Fellow in Taiwan Studies at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Plovnick was the recipient of a GTI Taiwan Scholarship grant, which supported her field research in Taiwan.

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