CB120513: Critical Node: Taiwan’s Cyber Defense and Chinese Cyber-Espionage

Cyberspace is emerging as a contentious frontier in cross-Strait relations. Overt military tension in the Taiwan Strait has ostensibly given way to a cold war in the cyber-domain. A surge in China-sponsored cyber intrusions was highlighted recently by Taiwan’s intelligence chief, Tsai Der-sheng. In remarks made during a public hearing held in late March at […]

CB 122011: DPP’s Cross-Strait Policy Consistent with “Status Quo”

With Taiwan’s 2012 presidential and legislative elections less than one month away and public opinion polls showing the two presidential hopefuls, President Ma Ying-jeou and Chairwoman Tsai Ing-yen, in a dead heat, Washington and Beijing have been preparing for the possibility of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) returning to power. The possibility of a DPP […]

CB 033012: Taiwan Navy Sailing Ahead with Indigenous Submarine Program

The Republic of China (ROC) Navy appears to be moving forward with a long awaited program to build diesel submarines in Taiwan. A domestic submarine program—which was aborted under former President Chen Shui-bian’s administration—reportedly has been resuscitated in President Ma Ying-jeou’s second term. While talk of an indigenous submarine program is nothing new, interest in […]

CB 032511: Taiwan’s Intelligence Chief Warns about the PLA’s Growing Strategic Weapon Systems

The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) arsenal of strategic weapons systems is growing in spite of the cross-Strait détente. According to Tsai Der-Sheng, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) director-general, China has deployed a ‘new’ type of missile that will increase the PLA’s capability in terms of range and accuracy to attack hardened targets like airfields and command […]

CB 011209: Hu Jintao’s ‘Six-Points’ Proposition to Taiwan

On the eve of 2009, the President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, Hu Jintao, delivered a capstone speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” (Xinhua News Agency, December 31, 2008). The message was first issued by the Standing […]

CB 110510: “War without Gunfire”: China’s Intelligence War with Taiwan

In spite of an apparent thaw in overt cross-Strait tensions since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was elected into office in 2008, the shadow war between Chinese and Taiwanese intelligence agencies has continue unabated. While Beijing and Taipei have made remarkable progress in liberalizing economic barriers, recent cases of high-level espionage laid bare the underlying distrust […]

CB 022009: China-Taiwan: An Intelligence Detente?

The ruling party in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT), is engulfed in another intelligence-related gaffe. A string of domino-like events that began with a report in the United Daily News, one of Taiwan’s major newspapers with close ties to the ruling party, which reported that a senior official in the Presidential Office’s Department of Special Affairs […]

CB 061110: Yonaguni ADIZ Widens Taiwan-Japan Rift

Taipei has rejected a proposal from Tokyo that would allow Japan to expand its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) to include airspace above areas west of the island of Yonaguni currently under the jurisdiction of Taiwan’s ADIZ. Yonagunijima is Japan’s westernmost island in the Ryukyu chain, situated 108 kilometers from the coast of the eastern […]

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Cross-Strait