Category: The Diplomat

On October 1, a Chinese mainland fishing vessel came into a confrontation with a Taiwan Coast Guard vessel near the Pratas (Dongsha) Islands. After the fishing boat refused to leave the waters, the Taiwan Coast Guard vessel used a water cannon against it, eventually forcing it to leave the area.  Just one day earlier, the Taiwan Coast Guard had detained another Chinese fishing vessel near Penghu and taken control of its seven crew members. The incident quickly attracted widespread attention on Chinese social media. Videos showing a Taiwan Coast Guard…

Few would have expected the Taipei mayoral race to become one of the most hotly watched races of the 2026 local elections in Taiwan. With incumbent Mayor Chiang Wan-an of the Kuomintang (KMT) facing off against Puma Shen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), polling shows Shen doing unusually well for a city that is traditionally seen as a KMT stronghold.  Another reason the campaign is attracting attention: the post is often a stepping stone to the presidency. Past presidents Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou both previously served as Taipei…

On June 3, in a rare – and telling – indication of collective alarm, the member states of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance published an unprecedented joint bulletin highlighting China’s use of professional networking sites like LinkedIn to carry out an aggressive, industrial-scale online espionage campaign. Armed with the personal data of millions of U.S. security clearance holders and applicants, acquired during China’s 2014-15 hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), spies from the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) have approached tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO…

In April, a 29-year-old woman traveling in Hainan swallowed a bottle of pills in a hotel room. Two days earlier, a fellow volunteer had told her that her national ID number, her parents’ home address, and her grandparents’ phone numbers were circulating online. Her offense, in the eyes of the people who posted her and her family’s private information, was reporting cat abusers to the police. The woman goes by the alias Zhima. She had spent early 2026 investigating networks devoted to torturing and killing cats on camera, working with…

This November, Taiwanese voters go to the polls to elect mayors, city councilors, and village chiefs. Many foreign policy observers will read the results as a verdict on Taiwanese attitudes toward China, President Lai Ching-te, Trump, or a potential war. That would be an analytical mistake. The outcomes cannot be explained by how voters feel about independence, unification, China, the United States, or any other national issue. As the saying goes, local elections are about local issues. Decades of data show that Taiwanese voters prioritize China, sovereignty, and Taiwan’s future…

What did observers in China think about the Russian State Duma election on September 20? While retaining a veneer of democratic procedure, Vladimir Putin has steadily eliminated potential rivals and term limits, much like Xi Jinping has done. In past Russian election cycles, Chinese officials and experts by large have emphasized the importance of outcomes reinforcing political stability in Russia.  In terms of the latest election, most Western commentary criticized the unfair process preventing Putin’s primary opposing party, Yabloko, from running. Yabloko – which means apple in Russian but actually…

At last week’s summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, the White House described the United States and China as World War II allies who “fought side by side to win the war.” It was a small phrase with a large omission. The government that represented China during the war, and fought alongside the United States against Japan, was the Republic of China (ROC). The government Xi leads – the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – did not exist until 1949, four years after Japan’s surrender.…

U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington and greeted him in person at Joint Base Andrews on the evening of September 23, a rare gesture for an American president. Critics in both parties warned that the pageantry would reward a rival.  However, the red carpet, the state dinner with its exquisite menu, the cannon salute and the bald eagle sculpture gifted to Xi are just the surface. Beneath them, the bilateral relationship has begun to take a new direction.  At…

Both in China’s official media and in the world press, the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump last week – their second so far this year – generated usual, predictable descriptions: “ambiguous,” “highly symbolic,” “historic summit,” and so on. However, a section of China’s strategic affairs community – definitely not the pro-U.S. faction – has taken exception to Trump’s “dramatic,” “personal diplomacy” hospitality in welcoming Xi. Cautioning Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership to tread carefully with the untrustworthy, capricious, and unpredictable Trump, a skeptic in…

The latest meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping led to much anxiety in Taiwan, with fears that Trump could potentially throw Taiwan under the bus in the course of negotiations with Xi. The two leaders agreed to dialogue on AI, as well as tariff reductions on $30 billion in “non-sensitive goods” going both ways. Even so, readouts between the two sides differed as to what was agreed to be purchased, and any discussion of semiconductors, chips, and export controls was not mentioned.  Besides trade deals,…