Ian Inkster – Taiwan Insight

For The Good of Taiwan. Truss, Sunak, or Complete Indifference?

1 September 2022 Adrian Chiu

Written by Ian Inkster. The most likely manner in which the choice of Tory candidates might be of interest in Taiwan would be through foreign or economic policy. Unfortunately, though these two areas of government are meant to complement each other in normal times, our days are increasingly abnormal, thus the array of rhetoric, the focus on personalities, the exaggeration of anomalies, and the fixation on trust, veracity, and the lack thereof. And that is just in one party. Look around to your left and see the mirror image. Look across the Channel and see confusion and a reluctance to debate all major socio-economic problems. Look across the greater sea to find headless leadership. Not a charming prospect.

Pelosi Baloney or Distractions versus Realities

11 August 2022 Adrian Chiu

Written by Ian Inkster. So, China warned of ‘resolute and strong measures,’ and Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan without incident on her way to the rest of East Asia. She may well have infuriated parts of the Chinese regime when she said: ‘Make no mistake: America remains unwavering in our commitment to the people of Taiwan – now and for decades to come.’ Nevertheless, there is still no hint of any change in US policy, which will not recognise Taiwan as an independent entity, never mind a nation. No pathway has been opened. Indeed, the Western media made more noise than Taiwan itself.

TI Viral Politics: Taiwan, China, and Covid vaccination

8 July 2021 Editor

Written by Ian Inkster. On 28 May, just after the Taiwanese authorities had apparently rejected outright Beijing’s offer to supply Covid 19 vaccines to Taiwan, Hsiao Bi-khim was urgently requesting from the USA ‘access to safe and effective vaccines.’ By 3 June, we knew that Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines had been approved by both WHO and Covax Facility for distribution to other nations, that many millions of vaccines have been sent out from China to Africa and Asia, and that whatever the political interpretation, these vaccines were offered early to Taiwan free of charge.

The Last Trump: Or, Taiwan as a Potential Pawn on a New Chess Board

15 February 2021 Editor

Written by Ian Inkster. As Joseph Cummings has summarised recently for Redaction Politics, ‘experts believe that Mr Biden’s policy will fall short of provocation of mainland China and Mr Trump’s open empowerment of Taiwanese militarisation,’ and there is little reason yet to discount that view. The fact that the US has approved recent arms purchase deals with Taiwan may mean no real change in the long history of less-than-best military techniques being sold off to Taiwan as part of the old cold-war alliance.

COVID 19 Recovery: Notes on Taiwan and the New World Trading Order

1 December 2020 Editor

Written by Ian Inkster. The world is nowhere near getting over the COVID pandemic. Whether referring to the possibilities of mutations of the virus itself or to the transformations, reactions and perhaps resistances of the national populations who are being continuously coerced or persuaded into adherence to often dubious and motley official regulations, most commentators and analysts think we are either within or entering a strong second cycle of contagion and mortality.

Taiwan and Europe: An Uneasy History

27 July 2020 Editor

Written by Ian Inkster. The historical relations of Taiwan with Europe are by no means unproblematic. When free of Chinese imperial power, Taiwan became subject to the western Great Powers and then to an expanding, industrially founded Japanese colonialism and militarism. At this point, relations with Europe were commercially close but politically and culturally distant. Led by Britain, the European involvement in Taiwan was never truly benign. After the war of 1937-45, Europe’s interest in Taiwan was principally as a developing economy that traded in a range of complementary goods and services.

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