Why would Russia be teaching China how to drop tanks and troops from a plane? A former Ukrainian intelligence officer who helped to verify 800 pages of leaked documents calls it “a critical component, which is needed for China being ready to invade Taiwan.”

the us is the world’s strongest petrostate. it’s giving up on post-carbon energy leadership. china thanks you. @gzeromedia.com

Check out this Taiwan rack of ribs... www.youtube.com/shorts/k_6Oa...

A great episode with Shannon Brandao, worth your time.

EU wades into kerfuffle over UN Resolution 2758, after China's new position paper caused Taipei to claim lays the groundwork for an attack EU says "it is very short - only 150 words. And among those 150 words, the word 'Taiwan' does not appear"

Taiwan President Lai urges Trump to continue supporting Taiwan, amid mounting concerns over whether the US president could sacrifice the self-governing democracy’s interests in order to engage with Beijing

FS-8A — the first component of FORMOSAT-8, a #satellite formation comprising 8 units — departs for the US. Nicknamed Chi Bo-lin satellite (齊柏林衛星) after the late environmentalist, the observation unit built with 84% #Taiwan-made parts will be launched on SpaceX's Transporter 15 #rideshare mission.

“The Chinese political activists are concentrated in Chiang Mai in Thailand's north, where they hold lectures and publish pamphlets, but they now fear for their oasis.”

Momentum in CA politics not in Newsom's favor: "The latest state voter registration data show since February 10, 82,700 people have registered as No Party Preference voters, and the Republican Party has gained 48,000 voters. In contrast, Democrats have only gained 190 voters in over 200 days."

Most Taiwanese detained in China seem to be for fraud but it is concerning either way if this is pretext for political charges or if they are held in an unaccountable manner

the second joint maritime training exercise since the nations severed formal diplomatic ties in September 1972 www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/...

I said what I said.

Interesting read. 70,000 Taiwanese in Brazil is no small diaspora focustaiwan.tw/culture/2025...

In 2022, the #ChinaIndex showed 45% of measured countries had at least one of their top 5 social media apps linked to the PRC. In the latest edition, that figure has jumped to 65%. Why does this matter? As Dr. Sriparna Pathak noted about TikTok: Watch the full discussion: dtl.tw/ci-forum

Ukraine saw the steepest decline in PRC influence in the latest #ChinaIndex. Our regional partner, Sorin Ioniță, shares what others can learn from Ukraine’s experience. 👉 Watch the full discussion dtl.tw/ci-forum

Vice President JD Vance said that “there was some resistance on the Chinese side.

Interesting piece on what the #ChinaIndex reveals about PRC influence in Uganda and beyond: subtle moves — apps, festivals, infrastructure, ‘no-lecture’ loans — quietly build exposure and alignment with Beijing’s strategic goals. dtl.tw/arddch

ICC charges ex-Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte with crimes against humanity. He had help in that murderous so-called "drug war." Time to round up his accomplices www.bbc.com/news/article...

Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspaper 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Great to see Center of Economic and Law Studies expand on the #ChinaIndex to examine the PRC’s reach across Indonesia’s provinces — highlighting how its influence goes beyond national projects and reaches deep into local economies & communities. dtl.tw/b3jrcd

A Black man and a homeless man were found hanging from trees in Mississippi yesterday, for those who haven’t seen yet because it’s barely made it out of local news.

In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter's description of Taiwan's history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. www.taipeitimes.com/News/editori...

Big sigh. Watch this. Can you see why the Yankees’ moment of silence, the lowered flags, the promise of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, feel like a gut punch to the very people he spent years targeting? No one wished death on this man, but what we’re seeing right now is too f*cking much.

To cling to political relevance, lol. But it proves somewhat awkward for the KMT that Hung keeps doing this, even if the party as a whole is not exactly moderating its pro-China image at times

In one measure rarely taken by the US, officials said that the US Department of State could bar US citizens from visiting countries put on the blacklist. www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/a...

“Japan is stable. It has rational politics. It has no Chinese nationalists…Everyone has a third term for Trump or a fourth term for Xi in their mind, and they don’t like it.” on.ft.com/3JO8WYW

People living near Tiananmen Square were even banned from cooking on Wednesday morning — on account that any smoke could haze up the sky — and instead were given breakfast packs of hard-boiled tea eggs, bread rolls and spicy Sichuan pickles. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

TaiwanPlus caught up with one open-source intelligence analyst who teaches Taiwanese how to track China's military activities to see how these tools can be used to identify new military equipment.

Ghost Month celebrations in northern Taiwan as the Main Alter is lit by Keelung’s leaders. 👻

Wrote on contemporary Taiwan convenience culture for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social, as it applies to everything from convenience stores to the high-speed rail

📅 Save the date: Sept 10, 2025! Join us online to discuss the latest China Index report 🌍 — compare PRC influence across countries & over time, and explore where vulnerabilities are deepening vs. where societies are proving resilient. 🔗 forms.gle/EMhMLdH6kUsa...

Powerful piece about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, democracy and solidarity, and Daniel Andrews. www.smh.com.au/world/asia/i...

President 🇹🇼Lai Ching-te has responded to 🇨🇳's commemoration of the end of World War II with a massive military parade, saying Taiwan "does not use weapons to commemorate peace and instead learns from the lessons of history."

Netflix just gave Gavin Newsom 2 million for the redistricting fight and made a deal with Sesame Street. New episodes will air there and the backlog of old episodes will Be free to watch. Netflix picked a side. I will keep my subscription.

Police arrived 50 minutes later, locating the hotel room and shutting down the equipment. An anonymous hero left a letter on the table. "Dear friend, I don't know who you are, so I'll call you friend for now. Perhaps by this time, you've already considered me your enemy…

Preseason AP top 25 rankings are out. Happy football, America.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy pushes back against Russia’s idea to add China as a security guarantor in the event of a ceasefire – Bloomberg: ‘“We don’t need guarantors who don’t help Ukraine, and didn’t help Ukraine at the moment when we really needed it,” Zelenskiy told reporters in Kyiv.’

"French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have both spoken in favour of troop deployments in a post-war settlement as part of a coalition of the willing, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also signaling openness to his country's participation"

Listening to Rubio on Russia/Ukraine, you can imagine a settlement: NATO firm on Ukraine’s border—membership or not—with some small territory sacrificed. From Taiwan’s perspective, the analog writes itself: Kinmen conceded to the PRC on one side of the coin, full recognition of Taiwan on the other.

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

When Pope Francis died, it wasn't clear his successor would take up his environmentalist mantle. In just a few short months, Pope Leo is already well on his way to being the climate champion the world needs now Gift link to my @opinion.bloomberg.com column www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Newsom is staking his presidential prospects on California’s notoriously volatile direct democracy system — about as high-stakes as it gets in American politics. He’s a top-tier contender for 2028, but a loss on an issue this big would be a humiliation too large to shake on the national stage.

“Elon Musk admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project to get in the way of that actually succeeding.” — @parismarx.com in @gizmodo.com He’s always been this way.

Everyone knows which country it is

Most of Taiwan‘s coast guard ships understaffed, report says – Taipei Times

On the bright side, at least White House acknowledged Taiwan is a country by slapping 20% tariffs.

Beijing’s tendency to view Starlink as tool of U.S. military power v. Tesla's operations in China - Musk will have to choose sides apnews.com/article/spac...

Handwritten note by Nixon prior to 1972 visit to PRC. Says Taiwan status is undetermined.

In this new article, I look at the data to explain why in spite of the higher minimum wage growth in recent years, Taiwan's average wages are not catching up—Taiwan's businesses have been so used to paying low wages, they want to keep profits for themselves and keep wages low. tinyurl.com/yc2f9y5m