Taiwan Security Research

Cabinet Sets Hitlist of Issues for 2012
(China Post, Feb. 5, 2012) Premier-designate Sean Chen reiterated that the government has not taken any stance concerning the controversies over U.S. beef imports and taxation reform.

Provincial Groups from China Resuming Visits
(Taipei Times, Feb. 5, 2012) Chinese provincial purchasing groups are beginning to resume their visits to Taiwan after more than six months’ absence.

Taiwan to Be Included in U.S. Visa Waiver Plan in Months: KMT Envoy (CNA, Feb. 5, 2012) Washington has made it clear that the visa waiver decision was not linked to Taiwan’s imports of beef from the United States. However, the U.S. beef import issue is linked to trade talks between Taiwan and the U.S.

Administration Denies Making Promises to US on Beef
(Taipei Times, Feb. 4, 2012) The Presidential Office dismissed allegations that President Ma Ying-jeou had promised Washington he would handle the US beef issue after his re-election, and insisted that there was no timetable in dealing with the issue.

KMT Downplays Urgency of China Talks
(CNA, Feb. 3, 2012) Although President Ma Ying-jeou's policies on cross strait relations were key to his re-election, political talks with the mainland are not urgent at the moment, especially as conditions are not right for such discussions, a ranking official of the ruling Kuomintang said in the United States.

Solution to Beef Row to Boost US Relations: Ma
(China Post, Feb. 2, 2012) President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday said his government will adopt a “new approach” to handling a dispute over U.S. beef imports.

Taiwan Places US$921m Order for PAC-3 Missiles
(Taipei Times, Feb. 2, 2012) Taiwan has placed a US$921 million order for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles as part of its military program to strengthen its air defense capabilities, a contract notification said.

US Reiterates Support for Cross-Strait Ties
(Taipei Times, Feb. 1, 2012) Ben Rhodes, the deputy US national security advisor for strategic communications, said the administration of US President Barack Obama had always backed Ma’s pursuit of better relations across the Taiwan Strait.

Japan Stands Firm on Islet Naming Plan
(Taipei Times, Feb. 1, 2012) Japan has taken a firm stance regarding its naming of several islets belong to the Diaoyutai Islands, despite repeated protests lodged by Taipei in recent months, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

MOEA Trying to Resolve US Beef Row: Officials
(CNA, Feb. 1, 2012) Mindful of the importance of the “beef issue” to Uncle Sam, the MOEA is trying aggressively to resolve the dispute between Taipei and Washington over U.S. beef exports to Taiwan.

AIT Head Restates Neutral Poll Stance, Hints Beef Action May Help TIFA (China Post, Jan. 31, 2012) Washington reportedly suspended scheduled TIFA talks with Taiwan after the latter decided to remove some American beef products that were found to contain the locally banned animal feed additive ractopamine.

Tsai Refuses to Meet AIT Chief As DPP Reiterates US Bias Claim
(AFP, Jan. 31, 2012) The China-skeptic DPP aired the protest as its acting chairwoman and losing candidate Tsai Ing-wen declined to meet a visiting senior U.S. official, citing a scheduling conflict.

New Cabinet’s Makeup Taking Shape
(Taipei Times, Jan. 31, 2012) President Ma Ying-jeou’s new administration came into shape with the near confirmation of a number of appointments and confirmation that premier-designate Sean Chen would preside over a handover ceremony on Monday.

DPP Soul-Searching on Taiwan, ‘1992 Consensus’
(Taipei Times, Jan. 30, 2012) Some within the party say accepting the ‘1992 consensus’ endorses the KMT’s stance, while others say it could be used to improve dialogue with Beijing.

Navy to Acquire ‘Listening Sticks’
(Taipei Times, Jan. 30, 2012) The Taiwanese Navy is purchasing hundreds of specialized sonobuoys from the US to augment its anti-submarine warfare capabilities, a US Department of Defense notice said.

AIT Chairman to Press for Beef Breakthrough
(Taipei Times, Jan. 29, 2012) Sources close to Burghardt said the beef issue would “most likely” top his agenda, while Ma was expected to concentrate on the possible future sale of F-16C/D aircraft and US help in acquiring diesel-electric submarines.

Taiwan’s New Premier Named
(CNA, Jan. 27, 2012) President Ma Ying-jeou has decided to appoint incumbent Deputy Premier Sean Chen as Taiwan's new premier.

Academics Expect Cross-Strait Relations to Deepen
(CNA, Jan. 27, 2012) If Xi Jinping takes over leadership of the CCP later this year, as expected, he is likely to be too busy with other issues to push a change of policy on Taiwan.

Free Trade Area to be Set Up in South Taiwan
(AFP, Jan. 26, 2012) Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou said a free trade area would be set up soon in the south, as the government begins moves to joining a trans-Pacific free trade alliance.

Deadly Confrontation Spreads in Tibetan Region of China
(New York Times, Jan. 25, 2012) Deadly showdowns between Chinese security forces and Tibetans in a restive region of western China spread to a second town on Tuesday, outside advocacy groups reported.

China Leader-in-Waiting Xi to Visit White House Next Month
(Reuters, Jan. 24, 2012) President Obama will host China’s likely next leader, Vice President Xi Jinping, at the White House on February 14, in a visit set to boost Xi’s credentials as the man who will steer Beijing’s close but quarrelsome ties with Washington.

DPP Prepares for Crucial Election Review
(China Post, Jan. 24, 2012) The DPP is preparing for a crucial meeting for a sweeping review of their defeat in the presidential election after the Lunar New Year's holiday.

US to Keep All 11 Aircraft Carriers As Show of Power
(AP, Jan. 23, 2012) US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told sailors aboard the country’s oldest aircraft carrier that the US was committed to maintaining a fleet of 11 of the formidable warships despite budget pressures, in part to project sea power against Iran.

China’s Rise Poses Challenges for Its African Peacekeeping Missions By Ivan Broadhead (VOA, Feb. 3, 2012) China has long adhered to a foreign policy of non-interventionism, where it tries to appear neutral in disputes outside its borders. As the country becomes more of a global power, however, it is less able to stay on the sidelines.

China’s Space White Paper: Increasing Transparency… to a Degree By Kevin Pollpeter (China Brief 12(3), Jamestown Foundation Feb. 3, 2012) The white paper, unfortunately, devotes much less time to Chinese policies governing its activities in space and, as a result, will do little to alleviate concerns over the country’s increasing national power.

Top Politician Looks Forward By Cang Lide
(China Daily, Feb. 3, 2012) Even now, Kissinger does not believe there's a need for a Cold War-like confrontation between China and the United States although there is growing suspicion in Beijing over the new military strategy that has the Pentagon shifting focus to the Asia-Pacific.

The Devil in the Deep Blue Detail
(Economist, Feb. 4, 2012) The disputes over the South China Sea have persisted for decades without threatening global peace and need not inevitably become the main focus of tension between China and America. There is a danger that putting the sea in the same sentence as the cold war too often is self-fulfilling.

Hunger Pains Test North Korea’s Dynastic Succession By Shim Jae Hoon (YaleGlobal, Feb. 1, 2012) North Korea confronts dire grain shortages that could lead to a third of its population going hungry. Collective leadership likely won’t last long in the rigid state, but aid could delay regime collapse. The US, South Korea, China and Kim Jong Un should prepare.

Return to Asia: It’s Not (All) about China By Ralph Cossa and Brad Glosserman (PacNet #7, Pacific Forum, CSIS, Jan. 30, 2012) America’s return to Asia is overblown; we never left. It’s not all about China and would be less about China than it is today if China would become more transparent about its claims and intentions and military modernization plans in the future.

US-India Relations: Pivot Problems By David Karl
(PacNet #7A, Pacific Forum, CSIS, Jan. 31, 2012) There is a conundrum at the heart of the Obama administration’s “pivot” toward Asia, at least as it relates to India.

Residents Vote in Chinese Village at Center of Protest By Andrew Jacobs (New York Times, Feb. 2, 2012) Thousands of people in the southern Chinese village of Wukan did something that many once thought unimaginable: They cast ostensibly independent ballots in the first step to determine the leadership of their seaside village in Guangdong Province.

China’s Real Rise—in Wukan’s Village Election
(Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 31, 2012) Wukan’s newfound freedom has inspired other villages to wonder if they can be next. With the help of the Internet, a rice-roots movement could easily spread as more Chinese throw off the self-limiting notion that they are not ready for the rough-and-tumble of open politics, as in Taiwan.

Kidnappings of Workers Put Pressure on China By Andrew Jacobs and Jeffrey Gettleman (New York Times, Feb. 1, 2012) The kidnappings have challenged Beijing’s traditional noninterference approach to foreign affairs and increased pressure, much of it expressed online, to protect its citizens more aggressively abroad.

Japan Hopes China Bond Buying Speeds Market Reforms By Tatsuo Ito (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2012) There's more to the plan by Japan to buy up to $10 billion of Chinese bonds than meets the eye, some Japanese officials say, adding that it's in fact a reflection of their frustration with the unilateral and aggressive purchases of Japanese government bonds by China.

Yuriko Koike: China’s Soft-Power Offensive in Taiwan
(Strait Times, Jan. 31, 2012) China's behaviour during the recent presidential election in Taiwan demonstrates that its leaders have learned some lessons, if only the hard way.

Heartland Return for Chinese Leader By Jeremy Page and Mark Peters (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2012) Xi Jinping's planned trip to Muscatine, Iowa, later this month sheds light on how the man expected to become China's top leader this fall differs from the nation's prior leaders.

Australia Defense Report Urges Northward Shift By Enda Curran
(Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2012) China's growing military power through the Pacific and Australia's development of vast natural-resource projects along its northwestern seaboard has pushed the country's defense planners to rethink strategy.

Flaying ‘Flowers’: An Example of Western Media’s Bias against China By Yiyi Lu (China Real Time Report, Jan. 31, 2012) The accusation of Western media’s bias in their China coverage does not seem entirely unfounded. A case in point: Western media’s treatment of Zhang Yimou’s Nanjing massacre film “The Flowers of War.”

China Courts the Middle East By Dilip Hiro
(YaleGlobal, Jan. 30, 2012) As a rising global power, China favors the region’s status quo, gambling it can continue to fulfill its growing hydrocarbon needs from the Middle East, acquiring a larger footprint there while spurning the West's pressure to join its anti-Iran drive.

Philippines Sends ‘Wrong Signal’ By Chi Haipei
(China Daily, Jan. 30, 2012) By allowing more US troops on its soil, the Philippines has sent the wrong signal, experts said, and the decision will cause more tension in the South China Sea.

Chinese Crackdown Seals off Ethnic Unrest By Michael Wines
(New York Times, Jan. 29, 2012) Faced with the largest outbreak of Tibetan unrest since riots in Lhasa and elsewhere in 2008, the government is taking no chances that the turmoil — which has included Chinese forces firing on and killing some demonstrators — will spread.

All Roads to Myanmar By Zha Daojiong
(PacNet #6A, Pacific Forum, CSIS, Jan. 25, 2012) One after another, Western dignitaries are traveling to Myanmar. A standard interpretation of the change in attitude is that Myanmar is finally demonstrating the courage and means to break away from China. But was Myanmar in the Chinese “geopolitical grip” in the first place?

China in 2012: The Politics and Policy of Leadership Succession By Bruce Gilley (China Breif 12(2), Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 20, 2012) The political challenges facing Xi Jinping concern both policy and government reform. Key benchmarks can be used to trace the implications of each of these three political stories of 2012—succession, policy and government—giving signs about the future direction of politics and leadership in China.

China in 2012: Foreign Affairs a Secondary Priority but Salient Challenges Ahead By Robert Sutter (China Breif 12(2), Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 20, 2012) China’s main problems in foreign affairs in 2012 relate to Chinese leaders’ difficulty in sustaining an effective and unified approach to foreign affairs amid challenges along China’s periphery in Asia.

China in 2012: Political Challenges in China’s Economic Governance By Willy Lam (China Breif 12(2), Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 20, 2012) Despite the obsession with stability and the penchant for sticking with time-tested means to re-inflate the economy, this year could be a watershed in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration’s long-standing effort to restructure the economy.

China in 2012: Shifting Perspectives-Assessing the PLA from the Ground Up By Dennis J. Glasko (China Breif 12(2), Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 20, 2012) Assessing senior-level leadership changes is important, but in order to judge the degree of improvement in People’s Liberation Army operational capabilities, many other factors need to be examined.

Taiwan’s Presidential and Legislative Elections: Implications for Taiwan, the United States, and Cross-strait Relations By Richard C. Bush (Luncheon address, CSIS-Brookings Symposium, Jan. 17, 2012) It is unlikely that President Ma will accelerate the process of reconciliation with China, moving towards negotiations on political and security issues. The smartest thing for Beijing and Taipei to do in Ma’s second term may be to consolidate the gains of the first one. How to Size Up Taiwan’s 2012 Election—Dr. Yun-han Chu’s presentation in this CSIS-Brookings Symposium

FDI Focus Continues to Shift By Ding Qingfen
(China Daily, Jan. 27, 2012) Chinese officials believe that the structure of China's FDI is changing with a move away from low-end manufacturing toward those sectors that could help China transform its economic growth model, including services, high-tech, new-energy and high-end manufacturing.

Philippines May Allow Greater U.S. Military Presence in Reaction to China’s Rise By Crag Whitlock (Washington Post, Jan. 26, 2012) Two decades after evicting U.S. forces from their biggest base in the Pacific, the Philippines is in talks with the Obama administration about expanding the American military presence in the island nation, the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at China.

China’s Hidden Wealth Feeds an Income Gap By Didi Kirsten Tatlow
(New York Times, Jan. 26, 2012) The rich were hiding their wealth, and society was far more unequal than the government was admitting — a politically sensitive subject.

The End of Win-Win World By Gideon Rachman
(Foreign Policy, Jan. 24, 2012) The rise of zero-sum logic is the common thread, tying together seemingly disparate strands in international politics: the crisis inside the European Union, deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relations, and the deadlock in global governance.

China Says Tibetan Monks Rioted, Provoking Deadly Confrontation By Keith Bradsher (New York Times, Jan. 24, 2012) The official version and the version put forward by overseas Tibetan groups both seemed to suggest that the confrontation may have been the most violent since a series of large-scale protests rocked Tibetan-populated regions in early 2008.

Year of the Water Dragon: 12 Chinese Maritime Developments to Look for in 2012 By Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins (China Real Time Report, Jan. 23, 2012) Beginning with the major potential newsmakers, here are 12 key maritime developments to watch for and what they mean.

Taiwan Offers Baby Bonus to Fix Plummeting Birth Rate By Tania Branigan (Guardian, Jan. 23, 2012) The island's plummeting birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, experts say, prompting a warning from the president himself, Ma Ying-jeou, that it is "a serious national security threat".

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