Bits n Bites

Work crews out last week after the typhoon.

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je went to the Shanghai Forum this week and announced...

“This is an ever-changing world. Seven years ago, who would have thought that the iPhone would change the world? A year ago, who would have thought that I would become the mayor of Taipei? Just a month ago, who would have thought that I would be standing here in front of you today?” he said. “However, one thing remains unchanged, and that is the long-lasting friendship that Taipei and Shanghai have established.”

Ko said that his stance on cross-strait relations and the forum can be summarized as “one family across the Strait” and four “reciprocal” actions: to know each other, to understand each other, to respect each other and to work with each other.

Ko said: “兩岸一家親” whose "family" meaning is a bit broader, more like "we're all relatives together". Ko did not say "兩岸一家" the straight up "(one household) family" that Beijing always uses. Ko reminds me of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, who understood the importance of discourse and were always seeking ways to push it and rework it in a pro-Taiwan way. Now Ko has added a new and weaker form of "family" to the range acceptable discourse, widening it in baby steps. Ko is pro-independence, so it's not like we have anything to worry about anyway...

Lowy Interpreter on Wargaming Conflict in the South China Sea... whole thing is interesting, but the players are way too rational.

A new Pacific war would look an awful lot like...the last Pacific war? In nearly all simulations the front becomes the first island chain. Taiwan is 'the cork in the bottle', but only for as long as it resists reunification. The Philippines is prime real estate. Although a small economy, it's a vast archipelagic space of 100 million people, thousands of islands, and airports and harbours galore.

Taiwan is resisting annexation, not "reunification" -- one China's most important forms of soft power is this kind of lazy vocabulary choice. But the analysis of Philippines is quite interesting...
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Daily Links:

• Don't miss: AmCham on the "Red Supply Chain": the threat from Chinese state-backed firms eating up Taiwan's semiconductor businesses.
• Solidarity: DPP projects 54-64 legislative seats.
• A well-written, meaty paper on wrecks and territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea. Well worth the time spent...
• Manufacturing value falls 9.2%. The declining China market is going to hit Taiwan hard, and the Ma Administration wasted eight years cultivating that market when they should have been investing the nation in SE Asia, India, and Africa. 
• PacNet 151 DPP's Policy of Cross Strait ambiguity. Of course this paper uses "Mainland China" instead of just "China". Another example of China's soft power in action... it contains a couple of seriously erroneous assertions, and appears to have been written by someone sympathetic to the KMT. I'll take a look in detail tomorrow....
• Eur Assoc of Taiwan Studies July 31 newsletter out

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