@TaiwanFCC Chair | @NikkeiAsia Correspondent | Formerly Myanmar, Thailand
Taipei
- Tweets 9,199
- Following 1,556
- Followers 8,094
- Likes 15,323
Pinned Tweet
🇲🇲✈️🇹🇼 Belated personal news: I left Yangon at the end of 2021 after calling Myanmar home for more than half a decade, moving to Taipei to cover news in Taiwan and Burma. Here’s my goodbye essay. 1/3
theguardian.com/global-devel…
13
226
728
Thompson Chau retweeted
Trump may have just handed Beijing a useful new line against Tokyo.
Standing beside Xi, he hailed China as America’s WWII ally. The catch is that Washington’s ally was Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China, not Mao’s Communist government.
Xi ran with it, as Beijing steps up claims that Takaichi’s Japan is returning to militarism.
asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/tr…
1
9
11
17,738
Thompson Chau retweeted
Taiwan says Xi 'distorted facts' to Trump as analysts read between lines s.nikkei.com/3VbG7LM
1
2
5
3,778
Xi asserted that he and Trump are aligned in their opposition to “Taiwan independence,” and framed this as an element of the consensus between the two leaders to pursue “constructive strategic stability,” @ryanl_hass told @NikkeiAsia.
asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/tr…
2
177
Thompson Chau retweeted
"Seizing Taiwan would not be enough to shift the regional military balance in Beijing's favor, nor would holding Taiwan give China launchpad for further expansion."
Both of these assertions are 100% false. asia.nikkei.com/opinion/the-…
14
22
152
11,768
Thompson Chau retweeted
The section about Taiwan in the Chinese readout has a deeper strategic calculation from Beijing's perspective: Xi Jinping is now positioning the Washington's handling of the Taiwan issue as the "foundation" of U.S.-China stability. This shows Beijing's recognition of the importance President Trump attaches to maintaining a stable relationship with President Xi, so it is seeking to position Taiwan as a prerequisite for that stability, potentially complicating Washington's deliberations about its engagement with Taipei going forward.
This step reflects both Beijing's confidence in its ability to influence the trajectory of development in U.S.-China-Taiwan relations and its attempt to set up a framework that may condition future U.S.-Taiwan relations.
fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/zyxw…
3
15
37
6,617
Thompson Chau retweeted
#Taiwan has been learning from the #Philippines' experiences on assertive transparency. With mounting gray-zone threats in the region, it's important for more countries to adopt transparency initiatives together to define, document & disclose China's coercive maritime activities.
17
70
1,911
Thompson Chau retweeted
1/ I've received a wave of media inquiries about how Taiwan will fit into the Trump-Xi meeting and whether there will be discussion about the 3rd communique from 1982. I am confident Taiwan will be discussed and doubtful there will be any grand bargains. Here's why (🧵).
8
40
113
31,870
Thompson Chau retweeted
Another important report from Asia Nikkei
asia.nikkei.com/politics/int…
1
4
328
Thompson Chau retweeted
While I agree that Beijing won't be so naive to believe that it can undo decades of U.S. policies toward Taiwan in just a year, focusing on the so-called "grand bargain" theory over Taiwan is the wrong question.
What China has been seeking to do, and is achieving some success, is to incrementally weaken key U.S. policy principles toward Taiwan, especially with regard to defense support. Their approach is targeted and their underlying objectives are not set. For now, their immediate goal is to ensure further delay of the U.S. approval of the $14 billion arms package to Taiwan, use the delay to amplify narratives suggesting U.S. defense support for Taiwan may be changing, and seek to influence Taiwanese public's perception about and confidence in U.S. credibility.
So while Taiwan does not need to worry too much about the so-called "grand bargaining," it does need to closely monitor any signs of erosion of U.S. policy toward Taiwan.
dominotheory.com/trump-xi-su…
3
31
103
26,342
Thompson Chau retweeted
Rupert Hammond-Chambers (@RJHCUSTBC) On Taiwan: The Fourth Taiwan Arms-Sale Freeze taipeitimes.com/News/editori…
1
1
276
Thompson Chau retweeted
Glad to share the stage with former #US DNSAs Matt Pottinger & Anne Neuberger for a fireside chat on current geopolitical issues, including tech, cyber, the will to fight, resilience, cognitive warfare, etc. Can’t thank them enough for their support for #Taiwan.
1
24
143
3,245
De facto ambassadors from Britain, the EU and the US - Ruth Bradley-Jones, Lutz Guellner and Raymond Greene - shared the stage to talk about Taiwan’s energy and maritime security as well as FIMI and election interference. 1/4 @NikkeiAsia
asia.nikkei.com/politics/int…
1
2
8
576
AIT director Raymond Greene weighed in on energy: “You see a lot of international commentary about how many days of supplies of LNG does Taiwan have? Is it 11 days? Is it 14 days? Almost as if that’s defining how long Taiwan could survive a crisis.” 3/4
asia.nikkei.com/politics/int…
1
1
101
Greene: “How long can the global economy continue to operate at full strength if they don’t have access to commerce and trade with Taiwan?…
That timeline is much [shorter] and much more severe than any timeline about Taiwan’s energy security.” 4/4
asia.nikkei.com/politics/int…
1
1
4
196
Thompson Chau retweeted
Foreign envoys in Taiwan warn rules of game at sea are being challenged s.nikkei.com/4jdgQL0
3
3
14
6,529
Thompson Chau retweeted
EXPLAINER: This story explains why Taiwan's defense ministry failed at getting the right people to provide counter drone solutions, @redharryng @imtienyikrislih write
dominotheory.com/five-takeaw…
1
4
11
737
Thompson Chau retweeted
The news that Taiwan is planning to open a new representative office in Cebu, the Philippines, is certainly a notable diplomatic development for Taipei amid the increased diplomatic pressure imposed by China in recent months, which has seen several African countries refusing to recognize the Taiwan passport and Taiwanese representatives being banned from attending international conferences in Africa.
However, there are reasons to remain cautious about the implications of this development. Overstretching it as a sign that the Philippines is looking to deepen ties with Taiwan beyond economic exchange risks overlooking the important and complicated dynamics within the Philippines' domestic politics.
asia.nikkei.com/politics/int…
7
23
106
5,623