Tag: International Relations

Why Taiwan’s Election Matters to the World

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Taiwan’s election on Saturday has big implications not only for the 23 million people who live on the island, but also for China’s superpower rivalry with the United States. Voters chose as their next president Lai Ching-te, the current vice president, who has vowed to continue his party’s policy of protecting the island’s sovereignty. The vote is a rebuke to Beijing’s claim over Taiwan and the growing pressure it has been exerting on the island democracy. As in all major Taiwanese elections, how to deal with China was a central…

In Taiwan, Voters Choose President as China Tensions Loom

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The Taiwanese politician Lai Ching-te has for years been reviled by China’s Communist Party as a dangerous foe who, by its account, could drag the two sides into a war by pressing for full independence for his island democracy. Right up to Saturday, when millions of Taiwanese voted for their next president, an official Beijing news outlet warned that Mr. Lai could take Taiwan “on a path of no return.” Yet, despite China’s months of menacing warnings of a “war or peace” choice for Taiwan’s voters, Mr. Lai was elected…

China Failed to Sway Taiwan’s Election. What Happens Now?

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China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has tied his country’s great power status to a singular promise: unifying the motherland with Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party sees as sacred, lost territory. A few weeks ago, Mr. Xi called this a “historical inevitability.” But Taiwan’s election on Saturday, handing the presidency to a party that promotes the island’s separate identity for the third time in a row, confirmed that this boisterous democracy has moved even further away from China and its dream of unification. After a campaign of festival-like rallies, where huge…

Taiwan Party, Reviled by China, Faces Test of its Staying Power

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Nearly four decades ago, a group of lawyers, intellectuals and activists assembled in a hotel ballroom in Taipei to found an illegal political party dedicated to ending authoritarian rule in Taiwan. No longer a scrappy upstart, the Democratic Progressive Party, born in that ballroom, is now seeking an unprecedented third consecutive term. It needs to persuade voters that after eight years in power, the party can renew itself while also protecting Taiwan from mounting pressures imposed by Beijing, which claims the island as its territory. Led by Vice President Lai…

Taiwan Election: Why It Matters, and What It Could Mean for U.S. and China

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Taiwan will choose a new president on Saturday, bringing new leadership to volatile relations with an increasingly belligerent Beijing. The outcome could raise or lower the risks of a crisis, giving China a potential transition point to revive engagement, or to increase the military threats that could ultimately draw the United States into a war. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has asserted Beijing’s claim over the self-governed island of 23 million people by sending warplanes and ships to the skies and waters around Taiwan almost daily. Washington, while maintaining “strategic ambiguity”…

Microsoft Debates What to Do With A.I. Lab in China

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When Microsoft opened an advanced research lab in Beijing in 1998, it was a time of optimism about technology and China. The company hired hundreds of researchers for the lab, which pioneered Microsoft’s work in speech, image and facial recognition and the kind of artificial intelligence that later gave rise to online chatbots like ChatGPT. The Beijing operation eventually became one of the most important A.I. labs in the world. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, called it an opportunity to tap China’s “deep pool of intellectual talent.” But as tensions between…

Taiwan Raised an Alarm About a Chinese Satellite. Chaos Ensued.

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Taiwan’s defense ministry issued an urgent alert Tuesday about a Chinese satellite launched on a rocket flying over the island, an alarming message that interrupted the final days of campaigning before a major election and spurred accusations of a political ploy. The alert was sent to mobile phones across the island of 23 million people, where presidential and legislative assembly elections will be held Saturday. In English, the initial alert cautioned there was a missile flyover — an error quickly corrected by Taiwanese officials. “It was a satellite, not a…

A.I. Giant Tied to China Under Scrutiny

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A U.S. congressional committee has asked the Commerce Department to look into whether a giant technology company controlled by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates should be put under trade restrictions because of its ties to China. The company, G42, specializes in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, and is overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the national security adviser of the Emirates and a younger brother of the country’s ruler. It has signed recent agreements with prominent American technology companies, including Microsoft, Dell and OpenAI. A Silicon…

China Says It Detained a Foreign Consultant for Spying for Britain

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China’s top intelligence agency said Monday that it had detained the head of an overseas consulting agency for working as a spy for the British government to collect Chinese state secrets. The Chinese Ministry of State Security said it caught a consultant with the surname Huang, who collected China-related intelligence and found personnel on behalf of MI6. The British intelligence agency recruited and trained Huang — who is from an unspecified “third country” — in the United Kingdom and other places, the ministry said in a post on its official…

From Lebanon to the Red Sea, a Broader Conflict With Iran Looms

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President Biden and his top national security aides believed last summer that the chances of conflict with Iran and its proxies were well contained. After secret talks, they had just concluded a deal that led to the release of five imprisoned Americans in return for $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds and some Iranian prisoners. The militants that Tehran finances and arms — Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — seemed relatively quiet. Iran even slowed enrichment of uranium at its underground nuclear…