Saturday Linkfest

Weeding the sidewalk garden...

Too busy to blog today, so let's catch up on some links:

• China and Taiwan: Steady as She Goes
  

  China, Taiwan and the US appear to be relatively comfortable with the current state of cross-strait relations. But that shouldn’t lead us into a false sense of security, warns Roderick Wye. Beijing still remains determined to unite Taiwan with the Chinese mainland.

• Not often you see good stuff like this in the media: Taiwan on Edge as China grows closer
  

  As China's economy has slowed so too has Taiwan's, with growth falling to 1.6 per cent per year in 2012 down from more than 10 per cent two years earlier. "You can't ignore the fact that we are overdependent on the Chinese market," says Nancy Hsiao Hung-chen, Deputy Minister of the Council for Economic Planning and Development.

• Helping SE Asia come to grips with Taiwan
  

  Lesson 5. Taiwan must also be flexible. The onus for reaching out and finding systemic solutions to the problems presented by Taiwan’s isolation predominately rests on its Southeast Asian neighbors. It is their diplomatic problems with Taiwan that stand in the way. Taiwan, however, must also be farsighted. At some points in the current dispute, reasonable compromises presented by the Philippines—President Aquino’s apology for instance—seemed to be rejected out of hand by Taiwan.

• China says countries bringing other nations in South China Sea dispute are 'doomed.'
• The courts are fair. That's why this minor DPP official got two years for authorizing a $4,000 NT payment. No, it's true.
• Taiwan's pariah state status makes it a conduit for illegal finance, stolen art, and once again, weapons technology transfers.
• Chinese dissidents are fine with democracy for China, but don't like it in Taiwan. Chen Guangcheng says independence is out of date
• SOAS expands its Taiwan Studies programs
• Some nice pics of a trip to Taiwan
• Coping with the Global Financial Crisis in China and Taiwan: Assimilation and Resiliency Between Confrontation and Assimilation: China and the fragmentation of global financial governance
• Coping with the Global Financial Crises: institutional and ideational sources of Taiwan's economic resiliency
• Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: the strident turn
• Cross Strait services agreement will impact Singapore, New Zealand FTAs so the legislature should vote on it as a package, says a KMT legislator, although LY says it will not.
• Defense spending in Asia to outstrip North America in less than decade
• Ma touts better quality military
• Phils boosts military
• NOT TAIWAN: MERS goes global

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