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Cross Strait

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Strait for the money

Why Kaohsiung’s mayor has been branded a traitor by some in Taiwan
Apr 5, 2019 (WiC 447)

Chinese President Xi Jinping spent a week in Europe last month. His diplomatic missions included signing Italy up as a member of his Belt and Road Initiative, and trying to convince the Europeans in general that China isn’t a commercial ...

Patently obvious?

Microsoft sues Foxconn for Android royalties – Huawei might be next
Mar 22, 2019 (WiC 445)

One of the worst kept secrets in the tech world is that Microsoft has amassed hundreds of Android patents (not what you might expect, given that Microsoft would have preferred to see that operating system supplanted by its own ill-fated mobile ...

A new year non-resolution

Why Cross Strait relations got off to a turbulent start in 2019
Jan 11, 2019 (WiC 436)

China’s opening up and economic reform era began in earnest in 1979 but the ideological shift would not have been possible had the United States remained an intractable foe, as it had been in the 1950s and 1960s. A sticking point to fuller ...

Why voters punished Taiwan’s ruling party
Nov 30, 2018 (WiC 434)

If you are looking for an insight into Taiwan’s midterm election results last weekend, nothing speaks louder than the victory of Han Kuo-yu. He became the first Kuomintang (KMT) candidate in 20 years to win the mayor’s office in Kaohsiung, a ...

Two few episodes

Why Ruby Lin’s TV series was axed by Tencent
Jan 19, 2018 (WiC 394)

Foreign travellers to Beijing might have come across the Gongzhufen underground station. Its name literally means “Tomb of the Princess” – and according to Beijing folklore it was the grave of a Han girl who’d been the adopted daughter of ...

Hon Hai move to the US proves controversial
Sep 1, 2017 (WiC 378)

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said it was a case of “the eagle has landed” when Donald Trump and Hon Hai’s founder, Terry Gou, signed a memorandum of understanding for a $10 billion LED panel plant in Walker’s home state at the end of ...

Panama ditches diplomatic ties with Taiwan
Jun 16, 2017 (WiC 370)

Taiwan has endured “all kinds of humiliation” because of the island’s diplomatic ties with Panama, China Times reported this week. A Panamanian foreign minister once called up Taiwan’s ambassador at 3am, the Taipei-based newspaper said, ...

Mourning a master

Noodle king closes its Taiwanese business but says it’s no big deal
Jan 13, 2017 (WiC 351)

In China’s lingua franca, Putonghua, the term for instant noodles translates as “convenient noodles”. In Taiwan such phrasing might elicit a titter or two because local nuance conflates the word “convenient” with going to the ...

Targeting the tourists

Beijing turns the screw on Taiwan’s tourism trade
Sep 23, 2016 (WiC 340)

In January 2012 the Kuomintang’s Ma Ying-jeou won a second presidential term in Taiwan. Investors seemed happy to see closer economic ties across the Taiwan Strait too. Just a month before the KMT’s victory, Want Want China and Tingyi, two of ...

Strait talking demanded

Beijing wants Taiwan’s new president to clarify her stance on ‘1992 Consensus’
May 27, 2016 (WiC 326)

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived at Taipei’s zoo as gifts from mainland China in 2008, when Ma Ying-jeou had just become Taiwan’s president. The two pandas were named in tribute to tuanyuan – meaning reunion – an allusion to China’s ...

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