Tag: Elections

Experts See a Message in Chinese Balloons Flying Over Taiwan

Media Library

The balloon flights may, nonetheless, be part of the “gray zone” tactics that China uses to warn Taiwan of its military strength and options, without tipping into baldfaced confrontation. The timing of the balloon flights, close to Taiwan’s election, was telling, said Ko Yong-Sen, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank in Taipei funded by Taiwan’s defense ministry. Mr. Ko has analyzed the pattern of recent sightings. “It’s more an intimidating effect in what happens to be a quite sensitive time, with…

China Increased U.S. Election Influence in 2022, Intelligence Report Says

Media Library

The Chinese government stepped up its efforts to influence American politics in the 2022 election, a new report released on Monday said, and intelligence officials are trying to learn if Beijing is preparing to further intensify those activities in next year’s presidential election. American intelligence agencies did not observe a foreign leader directing an interference campaign against the United States in 2022 in the same way Russia did in 2016. But, the report said, the U.S. government found an array of countries engaged in some kind of influence operations. And…

The Wild Card in Taiwan’s Election: Frustrated Young Voters

Media Library

In the months leading up to a pivotal presidential election for Taiwan, candidates have focused on who can best handle the island democracy’s volatile relationship with China, with its worries about the risks of war. But at a recent forum in Taipei, younger voters instead peppered two of the candidates with questions about everyday issues like rent, telecom scams and the voting age. It was a telling distillation of the race, the outcome of which will have far-reaching implications for Taiwan. The island is a potential flashpoint between the United…

Can Taiwan Continue to Fight Off Chinese Disinformation?

Media Library

Suspicious videos that began circulating in Taiwan this month seemed to show the country’s leader advertising cryptocurrency investments. President Tsai Ing-wen, who has repeatedly risked Beijing’s ire by asserting her island’s autonomy, appeared to claim in the clips that the government helped develop investment software for digital currencies, using a term that is common in China but rarely used in Taiwan. Her mouth appeared blurry and her voice unfamiliar, leading Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to deem the video to be almost certainly a deepfake — an artificially generated spoof —…

Taiwan’s Opposition Splits After Collapse of Unity Bid

Media Library

For weeks, Taiwan’s two main opposition parties were edging toward a coalition, in a bid to unseat the island democracy’s governing party in the coming presidential election, an outcome that Beijing would welcome. The election, one elder statesman from Taiwan’s opposition said, was a choice between war and peace. This week, though, the two parties — which both argue that they are better able to ensure peace with China — chose in spectacular fashion to go to war against each other. An incipient deal for a joint presidential ticket between…

Maldives Votes in Presidential Runoff Overshadowed by India and China

Media Library

As voting began on Saturday in the presidential runoff in the Maldives, the race was proving to be as much a referendum on the competition between India and China for influence as it was a chance to determine the small island nation’s next leader. The pro-India incumbent, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has trailed Mohamed Muizzu, the mayor of the capital, Malé City, who has pushed for stronger ties with China. When neither managed a first-round victory with half the vote early this month, the race was pushed into a runoff.…

Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets

Media Library

The polls predicted a re-election victory, maybe even a landslide. But a couple of weeks before the vote, Kenny Chiu, a member of Canada’s Parliament and a critic of China’s human rights record, was panicking. Something had flipped among the ethnic Chinese voters in his British Columbia district. “Initially, they were supportive,” he said. “And all of a sudden, they just vanished, vaporized, disappeared.” Longtime supporters originally from mainland China were not returning his calls. Volunteers reported icy greetings at formerly friendly homes. Chinese-language news outlets stopped covering him. And…

Your Tuesday Briefing: Uganda Enacts an Anti-Gay Law

Media Library

Uganda’s harsh new anti-gay law The president of Uganda signed a punitive anti-gay bill yesterday that includes the death penalty as a punishment, enshrining into law an intensifying crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. people in the conservative East African nation. It calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in gay sex. Anyone who tries to have same-sex relations could be liable for up to a decade in prison. The law also decrees the death penalty for anyone convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” which is partially defined as acts of same-sex relations with…

Taiwan’s Opposition Picks Hou Yu-ih, a Moderate, for Presidential Race

Media Library

Once a dominant political force, Taiwan’s main opposition party lost the last two presidential elections in large part because it has promoted closer ties with China. Now, faced with voters who have been alarmed by Beijing’s aggression toward the island, the Kuomintang is placing its hopes on a new type of candidate: a popular local leader with a blank slate on the thorny question of China. The Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, on Wednesday nominated as its presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih, a 66-year-old, two-term mayor of New Taipei City and former…

Your Wednesday Briefing: A Deep Look at Korean Comfort Women

Media Library

South Korea’s brutal sex trade The euphemism “comfort women” typically describes South Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II. But long after Japan’s colonial rule ended, the sexual exploitation continued with Korean and American soldiers. After South Korea’s Supreme Court last year ordered the government to compensate 100 of the comfort women, the victims now aim to take their case to the U.S. Their legal strategy is unclear, as is what recourse they may find. Park Geun-ae, who was sold to a pimp…