Taiwan - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

China labels US comments on Taiwan and AUKUS ‘dangerous’

CHINA'S government labelled as "dangerous" comments by a senior U.S. diplomat that the AUKUS submarine project between Australia, Britain and the United States could help deter any Chinese move against Taiwan. The project, finalised by the three countries last year, involves Australia acquiring nuclear-powered attack submarines as part of the allies' efforts to push back against China's growing power in the Indo-Pacific region. Speaking last week, the U.S. State Department's No. 2 diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, said the new submarine capabilities would enhance peace and stability, including in the strait that separates China and Taiwan. China claims democratically governed…

Apr

2024

By YIMOU LEE and FABIAN HAMACHER

Helicopter rescues Taiwan miners, stranded hotel guests confirmed safe

WORLD

A helicopter plucked to safety six people stranded in a mining area after Taiwan's worst earthquake in 25 years, and rescue workers reached 400 people cut off in a hotel in a mountainous national park by air, and confirmed all were safe. Hundreds of aftershocks struck Taiwan's eastern region, driving scores to seek shelter outdoors, as the death toll from Wednesday's 7.2-magnitude quake rose to 10, with the tally of injured at 1,099, authorities said. A helicopter ferried to safety six miners trapped on a cliff in a dramatic rescue after the quake cut off the roads into Hualien's soaring mountains, in…

Apr

2024

By YIMOU LEE and FABIAN HAMACHER

Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years kills 9 people, 50 missing

WORLD

TAIWAN'S biggest earthquake in at least 25 years killed nine people and injured more than 900, while 50 workers travelling in minibuses to a hotel in a national park were missing. Some buildings tilted at precarious angles in the mountainous, sparsely populated county of Hualien, near the epicentre of the 7.2 magnitude quake, which struck just offshore at about 8 a.m. (0000 GMT) and triggered massive landslides. Linda Chen, 48, said her apartment in downtown Hualien city had been so badly damaged in an earlier earthquake in 2018 that they had to move house. But her new apartment block was…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Taiwan, China launch rescue bid after boat capsizes near sensitive islands

WORLD

TAIWAN dispatched coast guard boats to join a rescue mission at China's request after a fishing vessel capsized near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, amid heightened tension in the sensitive Taiwan Strait. China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, over the island's strong objections, and has stepped up military activities near it in recent years, with almost daily incursions into air defence identification zones. Authorities on both sides sent the rescue boats after a Chinese fishing vessel capsized in the early hours, Taiwan's coast guard said in a statement, adding that two people were missing, though two had been rescued…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

How an election-packed 2024 could swing world markets

NEWS

COUNTRIES making up over 60% of the world's economic output and more than half of its population hold elections this year. Markets face a "ballot box bombshell", financial services group Morningstar says, adding: "Prior experience of this kind of event risk shows big changes can cause sell-offs". Here's a look at the elections that matter for markets, in roughly chronological order for the coming year. 1/ TAIWAN Date: Jan 13 Back story: Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is competing mainly with the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) for the presidency and legislature. A DPP win would be the third consecutive victory for a…

Dec

2023

By ABBEY MAKOE

US attempt to help Taiwan to secede from China “doomed to fail” – Beijing

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AT a time of great geopolitical flux – decried by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as a consequence of the “obsolete” global governance system – indications are that international peace efforts lag way behind a satiable appetite for conflict. The UN was founded in the aftermath of WW11 in 1945 in a noble effort to ensure no repeat of global conflict that had left nations in ruins. The UN Charter espouses the essence of a consensus-led international world order. The ethos of multilateralism has therefore formed a nucleus of the UN system, where debate and consensus triumph over bullying and…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

China simulates striking Taiwan on second day of drills

WORLD

YIMOU LEE and BEN BLANCHARD CHINA'S military simulated precision strikes against Taiwan in a second day of drills around the island, with the island's defence ministry reporting multiple air force sorties and that it was monitoring China's missile forces. China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, began three days of military exercises around the island on Saturday, the day after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a brief visit to the United States. Chinese state television reported that the combat readiness patrols and drills around Taiwan were continuing. "Under the unified command of the theatre joint operations command centre,…

Mar

2022

By The African Mirror

China says ‘double standard’ to conflate Taiwan, Ukraine issues

WORLD

RYAN WOO IT is a "naked double standard" to seek to conflate the issues of Taiwan and Ukraine as the island has always been part of China and is entirely a domestic matter, China's foreign minister said, drawing an angry riposte from Taipei. China claims the democratically governed island as its own territory and has over the past two years increased military pressure against Taiwan, having never renounced the use of force to bring it under Beijing's control. China and Taiwan's governments agree that Taiwan and Ukraine's situations are different, but for different reasons. China says Taiwan has never been…

Feb

2022

By The African Mirror

Taiwan tries hand at COVID diplomacy again with Somaliland vaccine gift

COVID-19

TAIWAN'S gift of 150,000 doses of its domestically developed Medigen COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Somalia's breakaway Somaliland region, the Taiwanese foreign ministry said on Monday, part of the island's renewed pandemic diplomacy push. Taiwan has donated millions of face masks and other goods around the world in what the government has called the "Taiwan can help, Taiwan is helping" programme to show the island is a responsible member of the international community, despite being locked out of most global bodies because of China's objections. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the vaccine doses, made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp, arrived in…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Taiwan releases train crash suspect on bond, prosecutors lodge appeal

WORLD

ANN WANG A Taiwan court yesterday released on bond the manager of a construction site whose truck authorities believe caused a train accident that killed at least 51 people, as family members mourned the dead at the crash site. The crash on Friday was Taiwan's worst rail accident in seven decades, when an express train hit the truck that had slid down a bank beside the track from the building site. The site's manager is suspected of having failed to properly engage the truck's brake. The train, with almost 500 people aboard, was travelling from Taipei, the capital, to Taitung…