Tag Archives: taiwan

Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Happy Birthday

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th February 2023 - 9:38 am

Fans of our foreign editor, Tom Arms, will be delighted to hear that he has started a weekly podcast, Transatlantic Riff.

Happy Birthday Ukraine, the Russian people, Europe, America and all the rest of the world.

The Ukraine War is one year old. An estimated 300,000 lives have been lost so far – and that is only the soldiers.

More than 5.2 million refugees have fled the fighting, mainly women and children who have left fathers, sons and husbands behind. Those who remain in Ukraine live in daily fear of Russian missile attacks. Many are without water, electricity or heating.

The ripple effects of the Ukraine War have encompassed the world. A trillion dollars’ worth of damage has been inflicted on Ukraine and the war has so far cost Europe and America an estimated $215 billion and this is only the beginning.

The Ukraine War has closed key gas and oil pipelines from Russia to Europe and forced Europeans to seek alternative supplies from America and Middle East. This in turn has pushed energy prices to crisis levels.

Inflation has been fuelled by energy problems and food shortages as Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are major suppliers of grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers.

The war has also produced tectonic diplomatic shifts. It has united Ukrainians and provided them with a clear national identity reinforced by a charismatic leader. Yes, Putin is right when he says Ukraine’s history is closely linked with that of Russia. But its future is not.

The war has also re-united Europe and NATO. For years America has complained about low levels of European defense spending, especially in Germany. Donald Trump even threatened to withdraw from the alliance. That has ended. Europeans are spending more and sending aid to Ukraine. The EU financial aid is actually $5 billion more than America’s $45 billion. But America’s total commitment of humanitarian, financial and military -dwarves the contributions of all the other countries combined.

Putin claims that his invasion is a reaction to NATO enlargement. If so, the war has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as Sweden and Finland have reversed their long-standing commitments to neutrality to apply for NATO membership and Ukraine is now a de facto member of the Western Alliance, but still outside the ultimate protection of Article Five.

Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats – veiled and unveiled – to use nuclear weapons has also revived the fear of a nuclear war. As has his announcement this week that he is suspending Russia’s in arms reduction talk, formally ending inspections of nuclear weapons sites and increasing Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.

On the ground, both sides are literally dug in with trenches crisscrossing in a general north-south gash across the Eastern part of Ukraine. Russia is believed to be on the verge of throwing another 200,000 conscripts against the Ukrainian frontline. The Ukrainian, for their part are hoping that poorly-led Russian troops will exhaust themselves against their defensive wall and fall to a Ukrainian counter offensive in the spring.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 4th September 2022 - 10:01 am

USA

Who are the MAGA Republicans that Biden claims are threatening American democracy?

For a start they support the cult of Donald Trump and cults are antithetical to democratic values. Next they propagate the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential elections. And unless an estimated 40 million voters drank a hallucinogenic Kool-aid they know that Trump is lying. Or alternatively, America is facing a major mental health problem. Finally, they feel so threatened by the values and policies of the Democratic Party that they are prepared to jettison truth, the rule of law and a much-revered constitution in the pursuit of power.

The current battle ground for what Biden has dubbed the “soul of America” is the mid-term elections to the Senate in House in two months’ time. His threat to democracy speech this week at Independence Hall in Philadelphia was Biden’s opening salvo in the campaign. Only a few months ago the received political wisdom was that the Democrats faced a drubbing at the polls and the likely loss of both houses of Congress. But that was then.

In the intervening period Biden has proved himself a legislative mastermind by pushing through his economy and climate change package. Missing top secret papers have been found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hideaway. Support for the Ukraine war has grown. Abortion has become an election campaign with polls indicating most voters favouring controlled termination. Inflation has stalled and gasoline prices tumbled.

Sleepy Joe has woken up, come out fighting and rapidly climbed five percentage points in the opinion polls. Trump backers are, however, standing firm. In fact, every attack on the ex-president and every legal investigation is greeted with cries of “witch hunt” and “conspiracy.” The MAGA squad have invested too much in the cult of Trump. They cannot afford to fail and are likely to resort to increasingly desperate claims and acts. This should be one of the most interesting US mid-term elections ever.

Pakistan

Two thousand-plus dead so far. More rain. More death. More destruction to come. Baked mud homes returned to mud and washed away. A bill which so far is expected to easily surpass $10 billion. Pakistan’s monsoon floods are a humanitarian disaster and another climate change warning.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review – 29th May 2022

By Tom Arms | Sun 29th May 2022 - 10:27 am

The 27 EU heads of government are meeting in Brussels next week to supposedly confirm plans to stop imports of Russian oil and gas. It may not happen. Decisions have to be unanimous. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has signalled that he will block the move.

Hungary is dependent on Russian fossil fuels for 100 percent of its energy needs. These can only be delivered by pipelines because Hungary is landlocked. All the pipelines run from Russia. The other EU countries have offered to give Hungary a two-year grace period to find alternative sources. But Orban maintains that he has no alternatives and that stopping imports of Russian gas would destroy the Hungarian economy.

At the same time, the newly re-elected Hungarian leader has used the war in Ukraine to declare a state of emergency which allows him to effectively rule by decree.  Orban claims that the Ukraine war “represents a constant threat to Hungary.” He has already used his new powers to impose fresh taxes to finance an increase in defence spending. Many fear that Orban will abuse the state of emergency to bypass parliament and suppress critics. He is already under attack from Brussels for damaging Hungary’s democratic institutions and the EU is threatening to withhold development funds because of that and allegations of corruption. Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: “Hungary was already no longer free, now it is no longer a democracy”.

With all this talk about Taiwan and ambiguous or clear US policies on the issue of whether or not to defend the island, one thing has been slightly overlooked – chips. To be precise advanced semi-conductor computer chips. Taiwan produces 92 percent of the world’s advanced semi-conductor computer chips. The remaining eight percent come from South Korea. These tiny electrical conductors are to technology what oil and gas are to industry and transport. Without them our computer-dependent world would come to a sudden halt.

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Tom Arms

World Review: COP26, French fishing, Taiwan territory and Russian gas

By Tom Arms | Sun 7th November 2021 - 8:33 am

COP26 finished its first week with a super abundance of world leaders making a plethora of pledges about climate change. Deforestation is to end (except maybe in Indonesia). More money is to be made available for green technology in developing countries. Eighteen countries (most of them small) have agreed to move away from coal generated energy. Now the leaders have flown home in their gas guzzling carbon emitting private jets and left it to officials to hammer out the devilish details and attempt to wring out concessions from the biggest polluters, mainly China and India who together are responsible for over a third of the planet’s carbon emissions. On the latter point they will have a tough job. India refuses to commit to climate change targets until 2070 which most climatologists reckon is much too little much too late. China, for its part, is continuing to build and export electricity stations powered by its massive coal reserves. Meanwhile, the Global Carbon Project reported that global carbon emissions are climbing back to pre-pandemic levels, with India rising by 12.6% and China by 4% between 2020 and 2021. The climate watchdogs predict that 2022 could see record levels of carbon emissions as air travel returns to pre-pandemic levels.

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Tom Arms

World Review: Tensions east, in NATO, in Facebook and in Boris’s Britain

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th October 2021 - 8:30 am

In this weekend’s World Review, Tom Arms comments on the implications of a mutual defence pact between Greece and France for Turkey’s role in NATO. Heading for cooler climes, Covid-19 has reached Antarctica but for those who as destined to suffer or die from malaria in sub-Sharan Africa, a vaccine has been approved for to tackle the disease. Tension are building in the east and Taiwan, China, the US and other countries are in danger of falling into the trap of unintended consequences. Can Facebook be held to account? And how can Boris boast about Britain being one of the world’s wealthiest countries while branding it “broken”?

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Taiwan

By Tom Arms | Fri 23rd October 2020 - 7:21 pm

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Hong Kong has taught the Chinese leadership that they can’t win the hearts and minds debate. One country, two systems, has not worked.  Neither will Beijing be able to buy support with their economic performance.

All of this raises questions about the future of Taiwan, and recent moves by Beijing are causing an increasing number of misgivings about the possibility of a peaceful solution to a problem as old as the People’s Republic.

Fears that the Chinese Communist Party is moving ever closer to a military solution have been fuelled by recent events. Last month 40 fighter jets from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a series of sorties over the sacrosanct median line that runs down the middle of the Taiwan Straits.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen responded with a call for tension-reduction talks with Beijing. China’s President Xi Jinping wasted no time in replying. The following day he rejected negotiations, issued a threat to invade Taiwan and released a video of training exercises simulating an invasion of the island.

So what would such an invasion look like and what are its chances of success? Well for a start, the Chinese forces are about five times the size of the Taiwanese military, and they are backed up with nuclear weapons.

But that is not the complete story. Two-thirds of Taiwan is mountains which are much easier to defend than open plains. On top of that, there are only a handful of beaches suitable for Chinese landing craft. If the PLA does successfully land it will face a determined military of 174,000 professional soldiers and a million reservists.  They—and the political hierarchy—will be ensconced in a bewildering labyrinth of mountain tunnels.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Taiwan

By Tom Arms | Fri 24th July 2020 - 12:27 pm

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Forget about Hong Kong. The ex-British colony is a consolation prize for Beijing compared to the 23.6 million souls on Taiwan, or, to give it its claimed name, the Republic of China.

The Taiwanese have kept an eagle eye on political events in Hong Kong since before the 1997 handover. From the start they were sceptical about the Beijing’s talk of “two systems in one country” and pledges of peaceful reunification. Recent events in Hong Kong have confirmed their scepticism and is threatening to ignite a 71-year-old Asian powder keg which could all too easily lead to a Sino-American showdown.

The dispute dates back to 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China’s Kuomintang government, fled across the Taiwan Straits a few months before Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party declared victory in the long-running Chinese Civil War. He took with him China’s gold reserves, American-backing, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a totally unrealistic claim to rule the 3.7 billion square miles of Mainland China from an offshore island of 13,980 square miles.

It couldn’t last. And it didn’t. In 1971 Taiwan lost its seat on the Security Council and the UN. In 1979 the US caved into the pressures of realpolitik and extended diplomatic recognition to Beijing. It maintained a de-facto embassy in the Taiwanese capital Taipei and pledged itself to the continued defense of the island, but in the eyes of Beijing and the rest of the world it was the de jure recognition that counted. Today there are only 15 countries (including the Vatican) that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

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