Beijing has put itself into an impossible position with its response to Lithuania allowing the establishment of a Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius, a Taiwanese researcher said on Saturday.
China on Tuesday recalled its ambassador from Vilnius and demanded that the Lithuanian ambassador leave China after Lithuania agreed to the establishment of the office.
The move has left Beijing with no room to maneuver on the issue, Taiwan Thinktank consultant Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) said.
Lithuania values its relationships with the US and other NATO countries, so worsening US-China relations had affected Lithuania’s attitude toward China, he said.
Lithuania in 2004
After Japanese officials finish practicing their foreign policy irony, hopefully they will settle on a serious and sustained national security approach to the growing China threat.
Leading up to and during Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s visit to Washington, the administration of US President Joe Biden pressed for a more forthcoming statement on the regional dangers presented by China’s aggressive behavior.
The US effort failed to eke out more than a tepid expression of hope for “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” Mild as that aspirational expression was, it was touted by the administration and the global news media as some
As he queued to board a flight out of Hong Kong to Taiwan last month, dissident artist Kacey Wong (黃國才) was painfully aware of the additional immigration officials who had been present to scrutinize each departing passenger.
Wong, 51, was one of Hong Kong’s best-known provocateurs, an artist who specializes in satirizing and criticizing those in power.
As China’s crackdown on dissent gathered pace in Hong Kong, he decided he had to leave.
Would the authorities let him go? Multiple dissidents have been arrested at the airport and Wong wondered if he, too, was on a watchlist, especially when extra immigration officials
WEATHER
<strong>Tropical storm possible</strong>
A tropical depression east of Guam could soon be upgraded to a tropical storm, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, adding that it would be able to better ascertain how it would affect Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. As of 2pm yesterday, the tropical depression was moving northwest at 16kph, bureau data showed. Bureau forecaster Hsieh Pei-yun (謝佩芸) said the tropical depression was nearly 4,000km from Taiwan. Meanwhile, high temperatures are forecast until Saturday as a Pacific high-pressure system yesterday expanded west to cover Taiwan, she said. Chances of temporary showers or thundershowers would remain high until Thursday
More than 90 percent of Taiwanese want to receive cash rather than “quintuple stimulus vouchers” proposed by the Executive Yuan, a survey by the Consumers’ Foundation showed yesterday.
The Executive Yuan is planning to issue another round of stimulus vouchers worth NT$5,000 to encourage domestic consumption in the wake of the recent COVID-19 outbreak.
It on Thursday touted four advantages of issuing “quintuple stimulus vouchers” instead of cash, saying that the expiration date on the vouchers would mean that people would have to spend them quickly and, hence, stimulate the economy.
Rather than using cash for one-time payments such as taxes and fines,