International

Republican Party Biden attack ad features attack on Taiwan

AI generated Taipei 101 in bombing raid
International 
Phillip Charlier 1 Comment

The Republican Party released a video advertisement yesterday featuring AI-generated images of a Chinese attack on Taipei City, along with scenes of economic and social disaster, warning Americans against voting for the Joe Biden in the next presidential election. The ad, titled “Beat Biden,” opens with images of a victorious Biden and Kamala Harris, and the question “What if the weakest President we’ve ever had were re-elected?” The scene then cuts to images of a Chinese warplane, and Taipei 101

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Taiwanese combatant in Ukraine confirmed to have died in battle

composite image showing Taiwanese volunteer in Ukraine International Legion and patch combining ROC Taiwan and Ukrainian flag
International 
Phillip Charlier 3 Comments , ,

Tseng Sheng-kuang (曾聖光), a 25-year-old Taiwanese man who enlisted in the International Legion of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces died in battle on Wednesday, November 2, it has been confirmed by the man’s family in Taiwan, and Ukrainian authorities, after reports began to circulate on social media platforms yesterday. Tseng’s wife, Huang Li-chen (黃麗珍), told Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) Friday evening that she received a message from her husband’s comrade that Tseng had died due to excessive blood loss after

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Victims, gunman in California church shooting were all Taiwanese

Geneva Presbyterian Church sign at entrance
International 
Phillip Charlier 0 Comment

The victims and the gunman involved in a shooting incident at an Orange County, California church that left one man dead and 5 people injured were all Taiwanese, according to reports in Taiwan’s Chinese language media. According to United Daily News, deputy director of Taiwan’s representative office (TECO) Los Angeles, Richard Lin, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency in a phone interview that police received a report of a shooting at the Geneva Presbyterian Church at 1:26 pm Sunday, May 15.

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Chinese city officials rescind order to cull COVID patients’ pets after public outrage

composite image showing alleged pet cull and order to kill pets
International 
Phillip Charlier 1 Comment , , ,

Municipal health authorities in a city in Hebei Province, China said that they have rescinded an order to cull the pets of people who test positive for COVID-19, after a copy of the order went viral on social media, sparking outrage among citizens. China’s Sina.com reported that the document titled “Urgent Notice on Rapidly Carrying Out the Work of Culling of Domestic Animals of Positive Patients” was issued by the “Epidemic Prevention and Control Leading Group Office” in Anci District,

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Taiwanese man will volunteer helping refugees after application to fight for Ukraine rejected

Wang Ruiti
International 
Phillip Charlier 0 Comment

A Taiwanese man said that he plans to do humanitarian work helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland after being informed that his application to join the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine had been rejected. Wang Ruiti (王芮緹) went to Finland to apply to join the Ukrainian Foreign Volunteer Army recently. While waiting for his application, Wang traveled to Lithuania by boat and bicycle. After arriving in Lithuania, Wang inquired about his application at the Ukrainian Embassy, but was informed

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Beijing’s big bucks billboards display chilling effect on free speech in Australia

Billboard design for Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance campaign designed by Taiwan English News
International Politics 
Phillip Charlier 0 Comment , , ,

Australian Senate candidate Drew Pavlou claims that Australian billboard advertising companies have refused to display his ad campaign out of fear of retaliation by the Chinese government, and that Beijing-funded billboard ads went up instead. Pavlou’s ad was designed to protest against the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics being held in a country with serious human rights issues, and depicted works by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao. Bishopp Outdoor Advertising had agreed to place the ad for $3,000. But yesterday, a representative

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Afghanistan crisis bodes badly for Taiwan says former US President

Trump Sean Hannity interview August 17, 2021
International 
Phillip Charlier 2 Comments ,

Former United States President Donald J. Trump predicted that bad things will happen to Taiwan after the calamity of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump spoke of the implications for Taiwan in an interview with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, Tuesday, August 17. “I think bad things will happen in respect to Taiwan because they [China] don’t respect our leadership and they no longer respect our country,” he said. “And that’s a really bad thing. China does not respect us any longer,” Trump said. Trump said that China’s

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How the west enables a tyrannical regime in China: a Uyghur exile speaks freely in Taiwan

Wu'er Kaixi and Brian Hioe at Snowball Community event, 2021.
International 
Phillip Charlier 0 Comment

“China has successfully managed to use its market and its people as a hostage to blackmail the world,” Wu’er Kaixi, an ethnic Uyghur activist who took part in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, said at a Snowball Community event recently hosted in Taipei. “One of the reasons the Chinese regime has been able to play that game is that the world let them,” Wu’er Kaixi said, adding that this was the message he has been repeating for the last

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Icelandic pensioner blacklisted by Chinese government unfazed by China anger

Jónas Haraldsson speaks to media about his blacklisting by Chinese Communist Party government
International 
Phillip Charlier 0 Comment ,

The government of the People’s Republic of China has blacklisted an individual from Iceland, after the island nation joined the European Union in sanctioning Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang Province, international news agencies are reporting, and the individual has been identified as a retired lawyer who wrote “negative” articles about the communist regime, according to the Icelandic press. “Beijing has sanctioned an individual from Iceland”, China’s embassy in Reykjavik announced, Friday, April 16, after Iceland joined the

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China orders more military training for high school students to strengthen “national defense”

A military officer trains high school students in china
International 
Phillip Charlier 1 Comment , ,

The Communist Party of China today ordered military training for high school students to be increased to a minimum of 56 class hours from August 1, 2021, with the goal of “strengthening the building of the national defense reserve force.” The National Defense Mobilization Department of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China, and the Ministry of Education released the “Syllabus for Military Training for High School Students,” today, April 13. The syllabus will be implemented from

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Art works featuring Batman and Winnie the Pooh censored from Australian university art gallery upon Chinese complaints

International 
Phillip Charlier 1 Comment , ,

Three art works among an exhibition featuring images from dozens of countries were withdrawn from an art gallery on the campus of the Australian National University after Chinese students complained about “racial discrimination” and “humiliation of China.” Three works by artist Luke Cornish featuring Chinese currency bearing the altered images of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping were removed from the exhibition following the complaints. The exhibition “Don’t Shoot the Messenger” by Luke Cornish, running from March 12 to April 15

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